Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 01 - The Trouble With Charlie (16 page)

“Her name is Sherry McBride.” Susan talked with her mouth full of a corned beef on rye from a deli tray someone had sent over. She’d just rushed in from an informal off-the-record talk with her pal Detective Stiles, who’d done some research about the woman who’d been removed from the viewing. I wanted to take her aside. To tell her in private about Derek and what he’d said about Charlie, but she was bursting with news. “She’s single, thirty-three years old. And a receptionist at Multicor.”

Derek’s and Charlie’s investment firm.

“So that woman—Sherry McBride. She and Charlie were—they were dating?” Why did I have trouble even saying that? Charlie and I weren’t together anymore. Were almost divorced. Had been free to do whatever we wanted. Even so, I felt a pang.

“MFB,” Jen swirled the ice from her diet soda. “I mean, so she was screwing him. So what? That entitles her to absolutely nothing. What kind of person would make a scene like that? Confront a widow? At the viewing?”

“Actually, that’s pretty standard behavior for her.” Susan licked coleslaw off her lips. “Sherry McBride has a history of stalking. Making threats. Ambushing people. Just last November, an old boyfriend took out a restraining order against her.”

“Really?”

“Wow.”

Silence. Probably, we were all sharing the same thought. That this woman was unstable. Might have been obsessed with Charlie. Might even have killed him?

It was just the four of us. Well, five. Susan’s husband, Tim, was there, too, but he was snoring softly in the easy chair. We were spread out in the living room. I hadn’t left, except to visit the bathroom or grab food off a tray. I hadn’t gone near the study, though. Didn’t dare. Despite the new sofa and fresh carpeting, I knew I’d see Charlie’s body there. Wondered if that image would ever fade.

“So why did she come to the viewing?” Becky sounded angry. “What did she want? Some kind of recognition for sleeping with him? Like to stand in line next to his mother?”

“She said she wanted to face me.” And she’d asked why couldn’t I let go and let Charlie move on. As if she’d thought I was still in love with him. Or, worse, that he was still in love with me. “I think she’s jealous of me.”

“Of course, she’s jealous of you. Look at her—she could never compete with you. Charlie blew it and messed up the marriage, but no way was he over you.” Jen sounded convinced. “If you’d have let him, he’d have come home in an eye blink.”

I doubted that. “But why would she be jealous now? There’s no point. The man is dead—”

“Yeah. And, given her obsessive jealousy, maybe she’s the
one who made him that way.” There. The possibility was in the open. Jen had said it out loud.

And Becky agreed. “I bet she was stalking him. Like her last boyfriend. She probably followed Charlie to Elle’s house—”

“But why did he go to Elle’s?”

“Who knows? It doesn’t matter.” Becky dismissed Jen’s question with a wave of her hand. “Maybe he left a book here—”

Or maybe, like Derek said, he was hiding evidence so he could blackmail a client.

“But here’s what I think happened. What’s her name again? Sherry?”

“Yes. Sherry.”

“So Sherry follows Charlie, because she’s an insecure psycho stalker by nature.” Becky leaned forward, animated. “And when she sees Charlie going into Elle’s house, she goes bananas. She assumes he’s there to cheat on her, that he’s been seeing Elle all along behind her back. So she rings the bell. Charlie looks out to see who’s there. When he sees it’s her, he lets her in. They argue. She accuses him of cheating. He accuses her of being a lunatic. ‘What are you doing? Following me?’” Becky imitated Charlie’s baritone. Did a good job. “You know Charlie. He’s not going to take any shit. He gets pissed. He dumps her, right there, and walks away. She’s not going to be treated like that. She goes after him, asking, ‘What’s so special about her? What’s she got that I don’t?’ Charlie ignores her, goes about his business. Maybe he tells her to get out, but she won’t leave. She tails him, yapping, until maybe he shoves her. Or maybe not. Either way, she grabs a knife in the kitchen and stabs him in a final fit of mad envious rage.”

Becky’s eyes glowed. She was breathless, panting. Pleased with herself.

For a moment, nobody said anything.

Then Susan nodded, “It’s certainly possible.” She took another bite of corned beef.

“Is that what your detective friend thinks?” Jen asked. “Because if Becky can figure that out, the cops certainly should.”

Becky bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘If Becky can figure it out.’ As if I’m the least likely to—”

“No. Becky, QD.” Quiet Down. “I just meant that they’re professionals—”

I stopped listening to the words, let myself float upon the back-and-forth of voices. I couldn’t help it. I felt relieved. Hugely relieved. Because, clearly, Sherry provided the police with another suspect. In fact, between her and the client Derek had been talking about, the number of possible killers had tripled in a matter of hours. And I was no longer the only person on their radar.

I was in bed, unable to sleep, events whirling in my mind out of sequence. And, like a rotten aftertaste, Derek’s assertion kept coming back. Was he right that Charlie had come to the house to hide stolen files? I hadn’t found anything. Didn’t believe Derek anyway.

But then I sat up. If Charlie had hidden something in the house, I thought I knew where he’d have put it.

No one knows a house like the people who live in it. Within walls, above rafters, beneath staircases are secret spaces, cloistered corners, nooks known only to inhabitants.

And so it was with our house. Charlie and I knew her skeleton, her flaws and facades, the bare beams under her painted and papered walls. We’d seen her guts when we’d redecorated, redoing the old kitchen and bathrooms, adding the powder room, replacing crumbling old walls and woodwork, enlarging closets.

When we’d rebuilt the front closet, we expanded it into the foyer, leaving the old, smaller one behind it as storage space for luggage and miscellany. Snow shoes. Old golf clubs. Charlie’s bowling ball. Picnic baskets. Beach umbrellas. The storage
cubby extended from the rear of the new closet to the underside of the stairway to the second floor. It was a place no one else knew about. A place Charlie might put something he didn’t want found.

I stepped into the front closet, shoved through coats and cleaning bags into the storage space. Turned on the inner light. Smelled mothballs and stale air. Peered into the dimness. Saw nothing remotely resembling a flash drive. Or an envelope. Or a printout. Or anything not covered with dust.

I picked up snow boots, turned them over. Nothing fell out.

I opened a shoebox, found old photos. Charlie as a baby in a pram. His parents at Niagra Falls. His grandma holding him on her lap. Little Charlie on a tricycle.

I sneezed. Closed the box. Knelt and felt under the steps where the light didn’t shine. Found only cobwebs.

Stood. Gave the storage space one more look. Saw nothing but clutter. Boxes and suitcases, a cubby crammed with discarded memories. Wiping off my hands, I turned out the light, pushed through the coats, closed the closet door, and went upstairs to bed. Derek’s words still lingered like the taste of spoiled milk.

The first row was reserved for family. I sat apart from Charlie’s blood relatives, to the left of the aisle. Across from me was Florence in her wheelchair, her hair done perfectly and nails newly manicured. Beside her were Emma, Herb, and their children, and beyond them were a few of Charlie’s cousins, people I’d met a decade ago at our wedding and hadn’t seen since. Ted never showed up.

I was alone on my side of the aisle, preferring not to sit with Emma’s brood. Without children, siblings, or parents to buffer me, I felt exposed. Felt the lasers of staring eyes, and the weight of the unspoken allegations that, if I’d killed Somerset Bradley,
I must have killed Charlie. “That’s her over there—she looks guilty, doesn’t she?” Or, “That’s his ex, the one I told you about.” But Susan and Tim sat right behind me. Jen and her husband and Becky sat close by in the same row. Surrounding me like family, even without blood ties. I felt a pang, missing my parents, gone now for fourteen years. Aching, I wondered again if they’d seen the drunk careening toward them, if they’d realized they were going to crash. Had they screamed? Prayed? Cursed? Thought of their daughter? But no, I wasn’t going start that spiral. Today was about Charlie. Only Charlie.

The coffin looked polished and tasteful. The flowers were graceful. The room filled to capacity. When I glanced around, I saw people standing along the walls. Charlie would have been pleased, I thought, that so many had turned out to send him off.

The pastor adjusted his spectacles and began the service that Edward and I had planned. Nondenominational. Mostly poems.

“We begin with Three Ecclesiastes.” His voice rang out, nasal and affected, reminding people to follow the programs on their seats. “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven—”

I lifted my program on which Edward had printed our selected readings. Tried to follow along. Mumbled, “A time to be born and a time to die—”

Someone took a seat right beside me. Well, who cared? Why should people stand when there were open seats in the family row?

“A time to plant, and a time to reap what has been planted. A time to tear down and a time to build up—”

“You’re not crying.”

Without moving my head, slowly, I shifted my eyes to the left.

“Why not, Elle? Can’t you shed one goddam tear?”

Charlie was indignant.

“Look around you. Everybody—even my ice bitch sister is
crying her brains out. Even my buddies, tough guys like Mort. The only dry eyes in this whole place are yours.”

He was sitting right beside me on the pew. Openly, not even trying to conceal himself. And he was talking out loud, right over the preacher. I glanced around, making sure no one else was seeing him. Susan noticed me squirming, mouthed a question, “What’s wrong?”

I whispered, “Nothing.”

Nothing except that the deceased whose life we were there to celebrate had decided to attend his own funeral. Of course, no one else knew that. Charlie was, after all, my own personal hallucination. Or my imagination. Either way, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t really there, and I knew it, even though I could see and hear him perfectly, could probably touch him if I’d tried.

The pastor finished his readings, and Derek went to the podium to make a personal statement.

“Those of you who know me know that Charlie and I were more than partners. Charlie was—” Derek’s voice broke, and he drew a breath, looked at the ceiling, bit his lip, collected himself. “Charlie was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. I trusted him completely—”

“Elle, I gotta tell you.” Charlie leaned close, spoke into my ear. “Dry eyes don’t look good. At least fake it. Think about it. Not crying only makes you look more guilty than you already—”

“Stop it. I’m not guilty.” I whispered. “I just don’t cry in public. You know that—”

“Did you say something?” Susan sat forward on her seat, touched my shoulder. Whispered, “I didn’t hear you—”

“It’s nothing.” I told her. I glared at Charlie, annoyed. He wasn’t, couldn’t be there. I was seeing what I wanted or needed to. Hearing him because some sick part of my mind couldn’t let him go. I needed to ignore him, make him go away.

People were chuckling. I looked around—saw that, thank God, the laughter wasn’t about me. Derek must have told an
amusing anecdote, something about Charlie’s unbreakable competitive spirit. Or his uncanny ability to sniff out profitable ventures. Or his unwavering determination to excel—

“And there was Charlie, just like the guy said. Flat on his face, passed out cold under the sprinklers, wearing the Easter Bunny suit.” More laughter.

“Do you believe that?” I asked Charlie. “He’s making fun of—”

“It’s okay,” Susan whispered. “He’s just reminding people of the good times.”

Charlie sat impassive, saying nothing. But then, Charlie wasn’t really there.

Across the aisle, Florence asked, “What’s that man talking about? Talk, talk, talk, talk. Enough talk.” Her voice was shrill and loud, and it interrupted Derek’s poignant closing comment. Emma and Frank hushed her, but Florence kept on, demanding to know how long she had to sit there. “When the hell’s lunch?”