Jeez, Connie said.
Do you remember the night your father died? Lucas asked.
Again, Helen seemed stunned. Then she nodded, slowly. I didnt know what was going on until the sheriff came Mom wouldnt let me get out of bed. But I knew my father was sick, thats what they said up the stairs to me, Mom and Audrey.
Was he sick for a while, or was it a sudden attack? Lucas asked.
He was sick for a long time, I think, more than a week… I dont know, exactly, I was only ten… but for a long time. Then the night that he died… God, it was cold, it was already snowing up there, thats one thing I remember about it. The wind used to whistle through that old farmhouse. It was a bad place. And I heard him having a terrible argument with Audrey, before I went to bed. We slept in the same bedroom, Audrey and I… Then, I dont think anybody went to bed. I heard him groaning, and in the bathroom, thats the last thing I remember about him being in the bathroom. Then he was quiet, and then I think I went to sleep, and the next thing I knew, people were banging around and cars were coming, and he was dead.
Had Audrey ever come up to bed?
Helen looked down at her daughter, then at Lucas. I dont think so. I dont think she ever came upstairs that night. She was downstairs, I think, taking care of him…
Huh. Okay. What about your mother?
Mother was… ruined… by my father. It was like there was no person left. I used to think, this is what a slave would be like, after they beat all the resistance out of him. Do this, Yes, master, Do that, Yes, master. She was like a rag.
And she died… Was Audrey there when she died?
Yes. We both were. I think she had the flu, she wassick to her stomach, and sometimes shed start vomiting, and Audrey would keep her in bed and spoon-feed her. And then one night she passed out, and Audrey called the hospital. She died on the way.
Your mother and father were both cremated, Lucas said. Was that Audreys idea?
Yes.
You didnt keep the ashes, by any chance.
No… Mom used to walk over to a park that was a mile or so from our house, down here in Lakeville, and we didnt know any cemeteries, so Audrey just said it would be nice to sprinkle her around the trees in the park, shed be there forever as part of the trees.
After a moment of silence, she said, You think she killed them? Poisoned them, or something?
Lucas nodded. I think its very possible. The insurance payments. ..
Helen shook her head: There wasnt any insurance, as far as I know.
Lucas said, Huh. Then, What happened after your mother died?
Well, we couldnt stay together. Audrey was barely eighteen, and so I went off to my aunts home until I was of age. She got a scholarship and went to college. I worked my way through a tech school, a business course… and then she married Wilson and everything.
Lucas said, I know this probably comes as a shock. But, if it would be possible… and I honest to God think you should do this. .. if I come over with a stenographer and an assistant county attorney, could we sit here some night this week and go over the whole thing? Your whole history? In a really detailed way.
Helen said, I cant believe that Audrey…
Yes, you can, said Connie. I told you, shes a mean old witch under all of that pretend stuff.
Connie… Her mother looked a warning at her.
But Connie said to Lucas, Whyd you want to know about Grandmas ashes?
Well, just a thing, Lucas said.
What thing? Connie persisted.
If your grandmother was poisoned, a lab analysis of ashes might turn something up.
Connie looked up at her mother, and Helen frowned at her and said, What?
How about that lock of hair on her picture? You said you cut it off the day she died.
Helen put her fingertips to her mouth. Oh, thats right. Id forgotten; completely. To Lucas: Would a lock of hair help?
Lucas shrugged. I dont know.
Sherrill, whod been sitting quietly, finally chipped in. The doc up in Oxford thought George Lamb was killed with arsenic. If Amelia was killed the same way, and it sounds pretty similar, then it would show up in hair. They all looked at her, and she said, I read about it.
Lucas turned back to Helen.
Could we have the hair?
THIRTY
AT TEN MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT, AUDREY WAS STILL packing. The cops had gone, taking a small box of miscellaneous junk with them. It wouldnt amount to anything, she thought. Tape? Everybody had tapethough she wished shed taken a minute to clean those doors after killing ODell. But shed never even thought of it.
On the bright side, shehadthrown away the glass cutter. It was lying somewhere on the shoulder of I-94, gone forever. On the down side, she hadnt thrown it away after she bombed the Bairds. Shed thrown it away after she hit Karkinnen, but only because she hadnt thought shed need it again. She hadntthoughtabout evidence.
She hadnt thought about it since the cremation of her mother. With all the other killings, if shed been caught, she wouldve been caught, and that would have been that. There hadnt seemed any point in worrying about evidence, except in the most gross waysdont leave any fingerprints, dont buy any guns.
Shed have to start thinking.
Shed gotten to Wilsons sweaters. Hed spent a fortune on sweaters, though they made him look the size of an oil tanker. He thought they made him look like a football lineman; in fact, they made him look even fatter than he was. Three hundred dollars for a sweater. I remember when you told me that, I couldnt believe it. Three hundred dollars. And its not just the three hundred dollars; if wed saved it, if wed put it in Vanguard, it would have tripled by now.
Lights in the driveway. She froze. Cops again? She drifted for a few seconds: She hated the police: that Davenport, he was the devil in this deal. A year from now, if she could find a gun, shed take care of him, all right. Give it a year or a little more, and then one night, maybe in January, when peoples doors were shut and windows were closed, shed wait by his house. If she could find a gun like the one shed used on Kresge: now that was a wonderful gun. Wonderful…
And snapped back. A car in the driveway. She hurried to the window, looked down, and saw Helen walking across the driveway toward the front door. Helen? She hadnt called.
A thought stuck her. Helen had been talking to Davenport again. She turned and hurried toward the stairway, as the doorbell rang downstairs.
HELEN LOOKED STRANGE: ORDINARILY NEAT, HER hair was in disarray, her face pinched, her mouth tight. She didnt take off her coat, but simply stood in the entryway.
I dont really know how to ask you this, Audrey. Ill just tell you what Chief Davenport told me. He thinks you killed Mom and Dad. Poisoned them. I told him I didnt think you did, and then I thought about it all evening and finally thought I better come over.
Mom and Dad? Mom and Dad? Do you think I killed Mom and Dad? Audrey was horrified, even as the small kernel in the back of her brain hardened around her secret knowledge.
I… dont think so, Helen said, but her eyes drifted away. When they came back, she said, Chief Davenport thinks thats why they were cremated. To cover up.
Thats ludicrous, Audrey snapped. Davenport is alltied up with Wilsons father; theyre trying to keep me from the money. Wilsons money will go to his father, you know, if they decide Ive committed a crime. Thats all it is: its about money.
Helen looked at her for another moment, a little too coolly, Audrey thought, then said, Okay. I just had to ask. Chief Davenport asked me not to talk to you, so please dont mention itbut I had to come over and ask you.
Audrey turned away, and started wandering back toward the kitchen, as though disoriented, as though saddened by this sisterly betrayal. You must talk to him all the time, she said.