Both Dad and I are worried. She only drank half a cup, and we wonder if it’s enough dope to do her in. Dad feels her pulse. It’s weak but steady. A half hour later, her heartbeat is even stronger. Dad says, “What the hell do we do now?” I think and think and think, then come up with a really rad brainstorm.
I get ten tablets full of Seconal, crush them in water, and suck the mixture into my old syringe. Did I tell you I shoot up occasionally? When the boredom is just too much. I haven’t done it for a while, but I keep the syringe-you know, just in case the mood hits me. I shoot the dope under her tongue. It’s absorbed fast that way and doesn’t leave any marks. A friend of mine told me that.
Dad feels her pulse for a third time. Squeezes her wrist hard. Nothing. Nada! We celebrate with a big hug and a wet kiss, then wash the cup and wipe the place clean of fingerprints.
A half hour later, Dad places a panic call to the paramedics.
God, I’m a great actress, carrying on like Mom and I were like bosom buddies.
“Mommmeeeee,” I wail at the funeral.
Everyone feels sorry for me, but I don’t accept their comfort.
My dad has his arm around me. He pulls me aside later on.
“You’re overdoing it,” he tells me.
“Hell, Paul.” I call him Paul now. “I lost my fucking mother. I’m supposed to be upset.”
“Just cool it a little, Kristie,” Paul says. “Act withdrawn. Like someone took away your Aerosmith records.”
I sulk for a moment, then say what the hell. He’s older. Maybe he knows best. I crawl into this shell and don’t answer people when they talk to me. They give me pitying looks.
The detective shows up at our door unannounced. He’s a big guy with black hair, old-fashioned sideburns, and acne scars. My heart begins to take off, and I say I don’t answer any questions without my dad around.
“Why?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I respond. Then I ask him if he has a warrant.
He laughs and says no.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t help you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asks.
“God, are you crazy?” I say. “I mean, with all that happened? I can’t concentrate on school right now. I mean, I lost my mother!
“You two were pretty close, then.”
“Real close.”
“You don’t look much like her,” he remarks.
I feel my face changing its expression and get mad at myself. I say, “I’m adopted.”
“Oh,” the detective says. His face is all red now. “That would explain it.”
Then he says, “I’m sorry to get personal.”
“That’s okay,” I say, real generous.
There’s a pause. Then the detective says, “You know, we got the official autopsy report back for your mother.”
I feel short of breath. I try to keep the crack out of my voice. “What’s it say?” I ask.
“Your mother died of acute toxicity,” he says. “Drug OD.”
“Figures,” I say calmly. “She had lots of problems and was on and off all sorts of drugs.”
He nods, then asks, “What kind of drugs did she take?”
Then all of a sudden I realize I’m talking too much. I tell him I don’t know.
“I thought you two were close.”
I feel my face go hot again.
“We were,” I say. “I mean, I knew she took prescribed drugs to help her cope, but I don’t know which drugs. Our relationship wasn’t like that, you know.”
“Why don’t we just peek inside the medicine cabinet of your house?” he says.
I shake my head slowly, then say, “Come back tonight, when my dad is home. Around eight, okay?”
He agrees.
Paul has a shit-fit, but I assure him I handled it well. By the time the detective shows up, we’re both pretty calm. I mean, all the drugs found in her stomach came from her own pills. And then there was the party she went to. I’m sure at least a half-dozen people remember her guzzling a bottle or two of white wine. She loved white wine-Riesling or Chardonnay.
My mother was an alcoholic. Did I tell you that?
The detective has on a disgusting suit that smells of mothballs. It hangs on him. He scratches his nose and says a couple of bullshitty words to Paul about how sorry he is that he had to intrude on us like this. Paul has on his best hound-dog face and says it’s okay. Now I understand what he meant by not overdoing it. Man, is he good. I almost believe him.
“Sure,” Paul says to the detective. “Take a look around the house.”
I think about saying we’ve got nothing to hide, but don’t. The detective goes over some details with Paul. My mom had gone to a party by herself. Paul didn’t go ’cause he wasn’t feeling well. At around three in the morning, he got up to get a glass of milk. I was asleep, of course. He went downstairs and found my mother dead.
“Where’d you find your wife?” the detective asks.
“On that chair right there.”
Paul points to the Chippendale.
The detective walks over to the chair but doesn’t touch it. He asks, “What’d you do when you found her?”
Paul is confused. He says, “What do you mean? I called the paramedics, of course.”
“Yeah,” the detective says. “I know that. Did you touch her at all?”
“Touch her?” Paul asks.
The detective says, “Yeah, feel if the skin was cold… see if she was breathing.”
Paul shakes his head. “I don’t know anything about CPR. I figured the smart thing to do was to leave her alone and wait for the paramedics.”
“How’d you know she was dead?” the detective asks.
“I didn’t know she was dead,” Paul says back. His voice is getting loud. “I just saw her slumped in the chair and knew something was wrong.”
“Maybe she was sleeping,” suggests the detective.
“Her face was white… gray.” Paul begins to pace. “I knew she wasn’t sleeping.”
“You didn’t check her pulse, check to see if she was breathing?”
“He said no,” I say, defending my dad. “Look…” I get tears in my eyes. “Why don’t you leave us alone? Haven’t we been through enough without you poking around?”
The detective nods solemnly. He says, “I’ll be brief.”
We don’t answer him. We stay in the living room while he searches. A half hour later, the detective comes back carrying all of Mom’s pills in a plastic bag. He says, “Mind if I take these with me?”
Paul says go ahead. As soon as he leaves, I notice Paul is white. I take his hand and ask him what’s wrong. He whispers, “Your fingerprints were on the bottle.”
I smile and shake my head no. “I wiped everything clean.”
Paul smiles and calls me beautiful. God, no one has ever called me beautiful. Want to know something weird? Paul’s a much better lover than he is a father. We make it right there on the couch, knowing it’s a stupid and dangerous thing to do, but we don’t care. An hour later we go to bed.
The fucking asshole pig comes back a week later with all his piglets. Paul is enraged, but the pig has all the papers in order- the search warrant, the this, the that.
Paul asks, “What is going on?”
“Complete investigation, Mr. James.”
“Of what!”
“I don’t believe your wife’s death was an accidental overdose.”
“Why not?” I ask.
Paul glares at me. The detective ignores me, and I don’t repeat the question.
“What do you think it is?” Paul asks.
“Intentional overdose.”
“Suicide?” Paul says. “No note was found.”
“There isn’t always a note,” the detective responds. “Besides, I didn’t mean suicide, I meant homicide.”