Meanwhile, the swelling went down from the cold compress, and the discoloration was hidden by the eye patch and makeup. Her dentist fashioned a bridge with a temporary tooth. On the third day following his death, Kirk was waked at a local funeral home in a closed casket.
He stood in line beside Lila, his face long with mourning. She nodded graciously as people offered condolences. He did the same, adopting her style and body language, even her words as he thanked the mourners. He did not cry. He could not even fake that. But some of the mourners broke down in sorrow, saying how his dad was such a great guy. Several schoolkids and their parents came by, but not Becky Tolland and her family. He was thankful for that.
After the wake he went home with Lila and his aunt and uncle, who stayed in the guest room. Lila continued her widow’s grief and only responded by rote. She said very little to him, and went to bed quietly. The following morning a funeral mass was held at Holy Name Church. Lila wore a thick veil. He sat in the first pew beside her while the priest went on interminably. He hated church. The funeral was not for his father but for her.
They rode in a long black Cadillac to Oak Grove Cemetery outside Derry. He sat beside her in the second row of seats, his aunt and uncle behind them. Nobody said anything. He took her hand, but it was dead. He gave it a squeeze as if to ask if she was okay—maybe a word or nod or a squeeze back—anything to relieve the anxiety wracking his guts. But she was lifeless.
It crossed his mind that maybe she was so thoroughly into her role as grieving widow that she didn’t want anything to break the spell. Method acting to the end.
He stood with her at the grave. Because of the veil he could not read her face, but he wanted to lift it and give her a wink and a smile. But that would have to wait. It was almost over.
At the luncheon back at the church she perked up and spoke to people, acting subdued. Later they returned to the house with his aunt and uncle, so once again there was no chance to be alone with her. She retired to bed early, while he stayed up until his aunt and uncle finally left.
The next morning the same two police detectives returned to the house to say that Lila’s story checked out: Kirk did have a room reserved at the motel and was scheduled to fly out of Manchester the next day. But they wanted her to take a polygraph test. When he overheard from the next room, he nearly passed out. But she calmly agreed and left with them. Yet inside she must have been a wreck. No matter how good an actress, she could not fake electrical impulses.
For the next three hours he could not keep himself from vomiting. Twice he was on his knees before the toilet bowl. He had no doubt that the cops suspected her. It was the facial bruises. They were a dead giveaway. The police clearly hadn’t fallen for her cellar stairs story. Nor his swearing that she was home all night. Maybe they had found some physical evidence at the scene. Or, worse, a witness.
A little before two, a police car pulled up in front, and an officer opened the rear door to let Lila out. She was not in handcuffs. On the contrary, the officer walked her to the door and shook her hand. But when she stepped inside, she was not smiling.
“Well?”
She laid down her handbag. “Well what?”
“Did you pass?”
“I got the part.” Her voice was flat.
He didn’t quite know how to read her. “That’s great.” He made a move to hug her, but she snapped away. “What’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem?”
His heart froze.
“You.”
“Me? Wha-what about me?” He thought his heart would never start beating again.
Because of the swelling and bruising, her face was a lumpy asymmetrical distortion of her own. She had also not eaten over the last several days and looked dehydrated. It was like addressing a shriveled and battered imposter of his stepmother, made all the more awful by her voice.
“You made me a bad girl,” she said in a thin whine.
“What do you mean?”
“You made me do it.”
“Do what?”
“The gun. You put the gun in my hand.”
His mind was scrambling in disbelief. “Y-you were looking for it.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was looking for my rosary beads.”
“Your rosary beads were in your jewelry box. And you were tearing through his things, his bureau drawers. I knew what you were looking for and got it for you.”
She shook her head as if mechanically programmed. “For you.”
“You were looking for it because he hit you, because you couldn’t go to New York like that.”
“You made me do it to protect you.”
It was like talking to a child. “Mom, please, that’s not true. I didn’t make you. You got in the car on your own and went after him.”
“I did it for you.”
“You did it for us. For you and me. Because he hurt you. Because he tried to ruin your happiness.”
She continued like a little girl, shaking her head. “You made me dirty. You made me bad. And now Jesus will never forgive me. Never.”
Then she made a stiff turn and walked out of the room and up the stairs to her bedroom. After a few stunned minutes, he followed her and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He knocked and knocked, begging her to open up. Begging her forgiveness. But nothing. He could hear her in there, going to the bathroom, running water, flushing the toilet. The creak of her bed.
“Please open up. I beg you.” He slid down on his knees, tapping the door with his knuckles and sobbing. “Please forgive me. I’m sorry. Please. Pleeeeeeease.”
But she would not open it. Nor would she talk to him through it. The light strip under the door went black.
After several minutes he pulled himself to his feet and shuffled into his room and went to bed. In the dark, staring at the black ceiling, he muttered a silent prayer to Jesus that in the morning Lila would be her old self again. He took three painkillers to sleep.
Sometime around eight he woke to the sunlight flooding through the window. He had forgotten to pull the shades. His throat was thick and tender from deep wracking sobs. He lay in bed a few minutes attuned to the sounds of the house. There were none. Nor the aroma of coffee that Lila made every morning.
He opened his door and crossed the hall to hers. He put his ear against it. Nothing. She was still asleep. So he went into his bathroom to brush his teeth and wash up. All the while his stomach felt as if it were churning asphalt.
When he was finished, he went downstairs and made a pot of coffee. He poured a cup and added heated milk and honey the way she liked it. He brought it up and listened at her door. It was nearly nine o’clock. She would probably want to call the dentist to check on her new cap.
He tapped the door. Nothing. He tapped again. “It’s me. I have coffee for you.”
Nothing.
He tapped more sharply, still nothing. She probably had taken sleeping pills and was in a drugged state. He laid down the cup and raced down the stairs for the duplicate keys in a kitchen drawer. When he found them he raced back up and went through several tries before he found the right one. It slipped into the tumbler all the way and turned.
The interior was still dark, and it took him a moment to make sense of the strange dark configuration in the middle of the four-poster canopy bed that took up most of the room. But it was the odor that hit him first.
He flicked the light switch and a sharp staccato shriek rose out of his lungs.
Lila was naked and hanging by the neck from a single black stocking tied to the upper frame of her bed.