‘When Phoebe gets out, she’ll come straight to you.’
Grace tilted her head to one side. What now? Small talk was out of character for this unwanted guest. ‘You know damn well my supervision was a condition of her release.’ And Phoebe had nowhere else to go. Her little cottage had been rented out from under her during the yearlong absence in an asylum for the rich and criminally crazy. The rental income had been sorely needed in the wake of Mallory laying waste to a fortune.
The detective looked around the drawing room. ‘Where’s Hoffman? Oh, right, you can’t afford a full-time nurse anymore.’
‘No . . . I can’t.’ Life had been a bit harsh since the tax men had come to the door, citing cash expenditures beyond her means, seeking their share of that unreported income, and then confiscating the monthly rents on the cottage that was once her daughter’s home.
‘But you don’t need hired help . . . now that Phoebe’s going to live here.’
‘And I have you to thank for that.’ This was said with acrimony. There was much to thank Mallory for, but now there were no funds to hire some unspeakable act that would properly show her gratitude. Grace also lacked the influence to have the detective fired. The only remaining power card had been played as the single threat of scandal on a grand scale: If she stood trial for any crime, a great many politicians would keep her company in prison.
Grace’s eyes were drawn back to the detective’s belongings. A tiny clasp was now visible on the book. Could this be another one of Ernest Nadler’s diaries? And what was in the tin box?
‘What a comfort,’ said Mallory, ‘a loving child to look after you in your golden years.’
The younger woman’s tone was disturbing; no one else could make that platitude sound like a threat. ‘Yes, I’m sure we’ll be happy together, Phoebe and I.’ The socialite stalked out of the drawing room and into the entry hall, another hint that this visit was over. Behind her she heard no sound of following footsteps on the marble tiles. When she turned around, she sucked in her breath. There was Mallory. So close – striking distance. Grace’s hand went to the medallion on her breast – her panic button, and she instantly regretted this show of weakness. ‘Was there something else, Detective?’
‘You’re a lot braver than Willy’s and Aggy’s parents. They didn’t want anything to do with their killer kids. But those people aren’t in your league, Grace.’
‘You mean they’re not monsters . . . like me.’ Oh – was there too much pride in her voice? ‘My dear, if that’s your best shot—’
‘It isn’t.’ The detective snapped on a pair of latex gloves and then removed the leather-bound volume from its plastic bag. ‘Phoebe kept a journal. I found it last year – the day I brought her in.’ The tin box was lodged safely under one arm as Mallory opened the little book. One searching finger trailed along handwritten lines. ‘Here it is . . . Poor Allison.’ The detective looked up from her reading. ‘You remember her – a little red-haired girl? She was pushed off the school roof two years before the Nadler boy died.’
‘Allison Porter jumped! It was—’ Grace’s mouth went dry, and her voice cracked on the word, ‘—suicide.’
‘Murder,’ said Mallory. ‘I had a long talk with the school’s night watchman. Maybe you know Mr Polanski. He was the handyman in those days, and he saw Allison fall. Then he went to the roof to see if there were more kids up there. He found the little girl’s panties and brought them to the headmaster, the one who retired. I tracked him down, too. He told me those panties were collected by someone from the DA’s Office, a man with a yellow bowtie . . . and that’s how I know your son murdered her – that and the little girl’s red hair. Did Allison scream? Is that why Humphrey pushed her off the roof – to shut her up?’
‘You don’t know what you’re—’
‘Phoebe knows . . . She’s always known.’
Impossible.
‘Poor Allison,’ said Mallory. ‘I can’t find a case file on her – not even a police report. Was that your practice run for cleaning up the mess of Ernest Nadler? Here’s a creepy thought. Did you pay Cedrick Carlyle a little extra to put the underpants back on that little girl’s dead body?’
‘Old business, Detective. Don’t even think of—’
‘The chalk girl in the school garden.’ Mallory turned a page of the journal. ‘That’s an old tradition, right? It always appears on the first day of spring – a chalk outline of a little girl to mark the spot where Allison fell and died.’ The detective closed the book. ‘That must’ve driven you wild. Poor Allison just wouldn’t go away.’
‘Get out!’
‘Phoebe’s the one who drew the chalk girl on the garden flagstones – so no one could forget what happened, and she hardly knew Allison. But then you sicked those three brats on Ernie Nadler – Phoebe’s friend, her best friend. She loved him – even tried to rebuild him – a dead boy that can walk and talk.’
Grace turned away and retreated to the center of the great hall. ‘I won’t listen to any more of your—’ This time, she heard deliberate footsteps coming up behind her, coming for her, and now she could sense the younger woman’s heat at her back, and she could feel Mallory’s breath on her neck with every spoken word.
‘When Phoebe strung up Humphrey and his friends, I don’t think she cared if they lived or died. She was marking the Ramble, the place where they tortured Ernie . . . just another version of the chalk girl in the garden. Phoebe couldn’t let you get away with erasing her best friend. . . . It was making her crazy.’
‘Hoffman!’
‘Hoffman’s gone,’ said Mallory. ‘Did you forget? Maybe you had another stroke. Maybe you’re having one now.’
‘Enough!’ Grace whirled around to face the smiling detective. ‘You’ve already taken everything.’
‘Not quite.’
‘What more could you possibly—’
‘I want you to read this.’ Mallory held out the journal. ‘Just a few pages. The last entry was written the day of Phoebe’s arrest.’ And when Grace was slow to accept the book, the young woman thrust it into her hands. ‘Read it . . . before Phoebe comes home.’
Grace opened the journal, her eyes downcast to scan her daughter’s neat lines of script, and she found herself mentioned in every passage. Page after page regurgitated Phoebe’s past, a child’s hell on earth, where monsters and Mommy were interchangeable evil, pages of hurt and pages of hate. The last lines framed a new and brutal, certainly fatal, scheme of a long-range planner, a madwoman whose whole heart was set on one more kill. Matricide.
Mallory reached out and snatched the journal. Book and metal box in hand, she crossed the hall in long-legged strides, heading for the door and never looking back when she asked, ‘So, Grace . . . how fast can you run?’
A rhetorical question.
The door slammed.
And shock set in.
Grace’s legs would not carry her to a chair. Slowly she sank down to the cold marble floor. The medallion around her neck could summon help within minutes, policemen to defend her against her own child. And after they took Phoebe away, what then? Years might pass without a crippling stroke, solitary years of growing fear. Or her inheritance might come tomorrow, the massive stroke that awaited every Driscol, the one that would send her down a long passage of infirmity and drooling degradation – as a pauper in the hands of strangers – a hell that might last thirty years.
Canny Mallory had left her two grim options, though the detective would certainly have guessed the outcome, the least nightmarish choice.