Patti tried to excuse herself once she made coffee for Jesse, but Jesse grabbed her wrist, gently, and guided her into a seat at the breakfast nook.
“It will only get harder,” he said, holding her hand, “if you don’t just talk to me.”
Patti Mackey broke down, sobbing, laying her head on the table. Usually Jesse made sure to never act in any way that could be misconstrued, but Patti was a friend and in pain. He stroked her hair until she was ready to talk.
“The other day, when I was here,” he said, voice soft as he could make it, “I knew there were things you wanted to say to me without Steve present. That’s why I’m here, Patti. I spoke with Dr. Nour. She told me about your other visits with Heather. She told me about the Vicodin.”
Patti Mackey’s hand tensed. All of her muscles tightened at the mention of the drug, but she didn’t stop crying. And then, finally, she lifted her head up from the table, wiped the tears away, and said, “It was me, Jesse. I killed her.”
His first instinct was to be a friend, to tell her she was wrong and that she wasn’t responsible. But as a cop he knew to just let her talk and let the guilt that was eating away at her out into the open.
“I let the doctor prescribe Vicodin even after she explained the possible side effects, but Heather was in so much pain, Jesse. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Sometimes I even had to help her up in the bathroom. I didn’t know what else to do. It’s hard to watch your child be in that much pain.”
“Steve doesn’t know about the follow-up visits and the Vicodin?”
She shook her head. “You know Steve, Mr. Straight Arrow. He doesn’t even like it when I have a few vodkas when we’re at the Gull with friends and everyone’s drinking. He would have disapproved. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I might’ve done the same thing. I hurt my back a few times when I played ball and the spasms were so bad sometimes I couldn’t stand up straight.”
“I swear, Jesse, I didn’t know she was hooked for a long time.”
“I’m not here to judge or punish you, Patti. Just tell me what you have to say.”
“Heather seemed much better after the fifteen days on the drugs. The PT and massage therapy were kicking in. Like Steve said, eight weeks after the injury, Heather was back at it. She said she didn’t want a refill on the Vicodin. She was herself again. And then one day in the spring I was cleaning her room and—”
“You found pills.”
Patti nodded and turned away. She was embarrassed. “I’m so ashamed, Jesse. How could I not have known? How did I miss the signs?”
“Come on, Patti. Teenagers are often strangers to their parents. Even parents close to their kids can’t really know them or what’s going on in their heads. What did Heather say about the pills?”
She laughed a sad laugh. “What you’d expect. That they weren’t hers and that she was holding them for someone else. When I asked who she was holding them for, she said she wouldn’t rat out her friends. I wanted to believe her. I guess I almost did until I went to pour the pills into the toilet and Heather flipped out. She was like a wild animal, Jesse. She grabbed them out of my hand, scratched my wrist when she did, and swallowed a pill right in front of me. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I was afraid to tell Steve and afraid to ask around for help because of Steve’s position. Heather begged me not to tell and said she could kick it with my help, that she could cut back gradually.”
Jesse said, “It seemed like it was working, didn’t it?”
She laughed that sad laugh again. “I financed her habit for a few weeks, doling out the pills as we had agreed. By May, I thought we had done it. I even took her into Boston, shopping to celebrate. What an idiot I was, a prize fool. In July, I noticed some of my things started to go missing: a pair of diamond earrings, my iPad, a watch. I pretended with myself for a week but knew in my gut what was going on. It was Heather. I confronted her and told her she had until the end of summer to kick it or she was going to rehab. And voilà,” Patti said. “She did it... I thought she did. What an idiot I was. Arrest me, Jesse. I killed my daughter sure as you are sitting here. I killed her with blindness as faith.”
“Patti, there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but drinking isn’t going to help. That I am sure of. I think you need to talk to someone about this, someone more qualified than me.”
Twenty-eight
Patti wasn’t listening to him. Stood up, went into the living room, and came back with an open bottle of Grey Goose. She didn’t bother with a glass, taking a big swallow from the bottle. These days, this kind of punishment drinking was hard for Jesse to witness. He had been where she was.
He sat patiently and watched as Patti took another swallow. As painful as it was for him to watch, he knew better than most how futile it would be for him to try to stop her. He remembered how he’d taken any attempt to stop him from drinking as a kind of personal challenge. He saw it so clearly now and had been utterly blind to it when he was still actively drinking. He imagined Patti would see it the same way.
“Chris Grimm,” he said, when he thought Patti could refocus.
That got her attention. “What about him?”
“You know him?”
“Of him,” she said.
Jesse stayed silent. He wanted to hear where Patti took this and he didn’t want to lead her in one direction or the other. As silence usually did, it got to Patti, and drunk as she was, she needed little prompting to fill in the quiet.
“I came home from shopping one day at the beginning of the school year and went to change the sheets in Heather’s room. It was pretty obvious she’d been sleeping with someone. I also found a condom wrapper on the floor under the bed. I’m not a prude, Jesse. I never thought a girl as pretty as Heather wouldn’t be sexually active. I mean, I was at her age, but when I asked her about it, she was oddly honest. She told me she had slept with a kid named Chris Grimm and that she had kind of always liked him even though he was sort of a loner. I figured that his name would come up again and they might become girlfriend and boyfriend, but...” Patti made a face and shrugged. “Heather never mentioned him again.”
“Is that it? When I was here the other day and mentioned his name, you denied knowing about him.”
Patti bowed her head. “I love my husband, Jesse, but he can be hard to deal with. I don’t know, I think he didn’t see Heather for who she was. His upbringing was old-fashioned, and I think he still suffered from the whole Madonna/whore thing. He wouldn’t have been able to accept the idea of Heather having casual sex. And the drugs... he would have totally lost it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why did you bring this Chris kid up?” Patti said, her body language hardening, her eyes focused and intense. “Did he have something to do with—”
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is that he was outside the funeral home and at the cemetery. It’s pretty clear he felt something for Heather, too. More than that, I can’t say.”
Jesse stood up to go. He figured he had gotten all the information he was going to get from Patti, but he reminded her to call him if she remembered anything or thought of anything else that might help him.
Patti tried to stand to show Jesse to the door, but he put a hand on her shoulder to hold her down in her seat. He knelt beside her.
“Patti, I’m an alcoholic. I’m sure that’s not a surprise to you.”
She smiled at him.
“Yeah,” he said, “I thought you knew. I’m not going to preach to you. I hated it when people did it to me.”
She was impatient. “But?”