Good Little Wives (18 page)

The house looked the same but smaller, closer to
the sidewalk, dwarfed by the giant oak trees that now were way too big.

It was made of red brick and was almost cottage-size, with a single dormer above the roofline of the small front porch. The dormer held the window that had been in Dana's bedroom.

How many times she'd sat there watching for her father to walk up the street on his way home from work, his navy uniform still neat and clean, his gold badge shining in the late afternoon.

How many times she'd come home from school and found her laundry neatly stacked on her bed, smelling like bleach
and strong detergent, sprinkled and ironed and folded by her mother.

How many times she'd sat at her desk, working on her homework, the aromas of her mother's cooking wafting up the stairs, though all Dana really wanted was for dinner to be over so she could go to the library with Becky or to Burger-town with Jane and Sue.

She sat in the passenger seat of the Chevrolet Impala rental car and studied the porch post where black metal numbers read 6–8–2–0. She remembered going with her father to the hardware store to buy them, then helping him screw them into the post. He'd always planned a Saturday project when she was young, something they would do together. It was years before Dana realized it had less to do with accomplishing a project and more to do with spending time with her, making memories, like the 6–8–2–0.

“Do you want to go in?” Steven asked. He sat behind the wheel, her patient, understanding husband, having skirted a business trip to Chicago to go with her to Indiana. “I'm sure if you rang the bell…”

But Dana shook her head. “I just wanted to see the house. I don't want to bother anyone.” Turning back to the MapQuest printout on her lap, she said, “Okay, let's go. According to Sam, he lives on the other side of downtown. I think I can remember how to get there from here.”

Like the house, the streets seemed smaller, the intersections narrower, the trip across town shorter. Before Dana was prepared, a sign in front of a two-story townhouse complex read
Meadowe Crest
. She pushed aside the MapQuest printout and got out of the car before she could change her mind.

 

He was old. His hair was white, his shoulders drooped, he stood a little shorter, his blue eyes seemed lighter. He was old, but it was he.

“Daddy,” she said, because that was what she'd still called him when she—when
he
—had been sent away.

His eyes came to life. His mouth turned up into a grin. He opened the screen door and took her into his arms.

 

“Your mother was sick,” he said to Dana while they sat, with Steven, in the small living room that had tweed-upholstered furniture and an old-fashioned ham radio set up in one corner. She'd forgotten he'd loved that, that he'd sit for hours and listen to the crackle waiting for voices to come from Russia or Europe or even Australia right into Indiana.

She hadn't forgotten the picture of her mother with a baby—
her!
—that now stood on an end table. He'd taken it at the Ohio State Fair in front of the exhibit of the world's biggest tomato.

She wondered what Bridget and Lauren and Caroline would think about that.

“You knew Mom was sick before…before you were arrested?” As they sat on the sofa, Steven lightly touched her leg, his hand a surge protector in case her emotions sparked. She was grateful that unlike Randall Haynes or Bob Halliday or Jack Meacham, Steven had always known about his wife's not-so-perfect past.

“Laetrile treatments were thought to be a miracle cure,” George Kimball, once the head of the police union, said. “The treatments were illegal here, but not in Mexico. The
trouble was, we had no money. The medical bills were already huge…”

She listened to the rest. How he'd embezzled all the money but then he'd been caught.

“When I went to jail, only five thousand dollars was left. It kept your mother going for a while.” He laughed a sad laugh. “It wasn't as if I used the money to buy her diamonds, though I often wished I had. I mean, I lost my job, I lost you, and she died anyway.”

Dana's throat was dry, tears leaked slowly from her eyes. “But you came back here. Why did you come back? Wasn't it…hard? To face everyone?”

He smiled a half smile. “I was away ten years. I came back in case you ever tried to find me. Even though I lost the house, I figured if you came to town, you'd ask around and someone would know where old George Kimball was.”

They sat quietly together, after more than thirty years. Then Dana asked her father if he'd like to move to New York. “You have three terrific grandsons,” she said, “who would love to know you. And we live in a nice town, if you ignore some of the stuff.”

Bridget strutted into the oncology department
Monday morning in teal satin pajamas trimmed with silver sequins that were great for staving off hot flashes. The Haynes family had spent Sunday afternoon at Victoria's Secret, where Aimée selected and Bridget modeled and Randall sat in the “gentleman's chair” and laughed at his two
jeunes filles
. Before heading home they stopped at the nutrition store and loaded up on immune-boosting wheatgrass and ginseng that Randall announced he would use to create a new cocktail for Bridget, a temporary (she hoped) substitute for wine.

Today she'd downed the drink, then jumped into the teal, which she now wore with dangling sequin earrings and silver satin mules. Randall said she never looked more ravishing.
She warned him he might regret those words if she threw up on the ensemble.

He marched up to the reception desk beside her, having canceled golf with Jack Meacham, the epitome of New Falls sacrifice.

“If anyone's going to poison my wife,” he kidded the woman behind the desk, “I want to be here as a witness.” But as he said it his voice quivered and his eyebrows knitted together and a touch of moisture filled his eyes.

Bridget smiled at her corny husband and his ill-fitting toupee and took him by the arm. It was nice now that her cancer was out in the open. It was nice that Luc was back in France, four thousand miles away by land and sea, a million miles and a lifetime away from her heart.

 

“No golf today?” Caroline asked her husband as she strolled past his bedroom and realized he was still under the covers and his draperies were still drawn though it was after ten.

He didn't answer right away, then said, “Caroline, come here.”

“Are you ill?” Yesterday she'd gone with Chloe to the Cloisters for the day. She'd greatly needed to get away from New Falls and her husband and the bitter aftertaste of the gala.

“Come here,” he said again.

Aside from announcing he was bringing someone or other home for dinner, or expecting her to keep their social calendar arranged with all the have-tos and the RSVPs RSVP-ed, Jack rarely asked Caroline for anything.

“Please,” he said.

She moved into the room with tentative steps.

“I'm sorry about the gala,” he said. “I'm sorry it wasn't everything you'd hoped.”

“We raised four hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It wasn't a total waste.” One of his hands was under his head, under his pillow. The other was still under the comforter, perhaps holding his penis.

“Please,” he said, “sit down.”

“I'd rather stand.”

He didn't push the issue. Instead he asked, “Do you love her, Caroline?”

She waited for the longing to crush her chest. When it did not, she asked, “What is love, Jack? Was it what we had?” It certainly wasn't being cruel, as Elise had been cruel to Caroline at the gala, almost mocking it, mocking her, using the gala as a soapbox for Yolanda's shock-news.

“I don't know what love is, Caroline. I can't remember. We've spent so many years being the Meachams, I've forgotten who Jack and Caroline really are.”

Her eyes adjusted to the light; she saw the questions in his. “Jack was a young man out of business school who wanted to take on the world,” she said. “Caroline was her father's perfect hostess who wanted a husband.”

“I'm not sure, but I think you've sold us short.”

“No I haven't, Jack. The problems started when we took ourselves too seriously. The rest of the world did, too.”

He seemed to think about that. Then he said, “I once loved having sex together.”

She blanched. “You did?”

He rolled onto his side. “I always thought no matter what the next deal would net or what the market did or didn't do
or what my golf score was, well, I always thought of you as the one thing I could count on.”

“It wasn't always about you, Jack.”

“You made me think it was.”

“I did?”

“Well. Yes. You were the doting, dutiful wife. And when you weren't doting on me or on Chloe, you were doting on New Falls. Why would I have ever thought that wasn't what you wanted?”

She sat down on the bed because she had grown weak.

“I'm sorry if I didn't measure up to your expectations,” he continued. “If you'd rather be with Elise, I'll go quietly. Or let you go quietly. Don't worry about money. I'll take care of everything.”

He slid his arm from beneath the pillow. He started to reach for her, then was content to rest his hand on the straight pleat of her pants. How long had it been since he'd touched her like that? Since he'd touched her at all?

“I thought about asking you to stay,” he continued. “But that sounded stupid. I couldn't come up with a way for the three of us to live here. Especially since it would be four now that Chloe is back home.”

“I wouldn't have wanted that, Jack.” Despite the lust, the craziness she'd felt for Elise, she'd never entertained the idea of having her live here, in the house that Jack built. Just as she'd never really imagined not being a New Falls wife.

“What do you want?” he asked.

And suddenly she knew. “I think I really only want what I've always wanted. I want you to love me. To touch me, really touch me. To make love to me and have the feeling linger. To
stop being such a driven, self-centered man and think about me as a woman. Who likes to be held. Who sometimes needs tenderness.”

He could have laughed at that, at Caroline Meacham wanting tenderness. He could have laughed, but he did not.

“I want us to try again. I want to forget about Elise. I want you to forget about her, too.” She hadn't realized until then that was indeed what she wanted.

He looked at her a moment with bemused eyes. “You think it will be easy for this man to forget his wife has been with a woman?”

She smiled quietly. It was all she could do.

He smiled slowly back. Then he slid his other hand from beneath the comforter. She thought that he was going to pull her close, maybe make love to her. She thought she might like it. She was so busy thinking that she was surprised to hear such a thundering noise followed by a blast that ripped right through her head.

Dana couldn't wait to tell Bridget about her
father. Steven had gone on to Chicago from Indianapolis, so she'd flown back to New York alone, adrenaline pumping from takeoff to touchdown, despite that she'd talked half the night, telling Steven stories of her childhood, of her mother, of Daddy.

They'd driven her car to the airport so she only had to jump in and head north to New Falls. By the time she got to Bridget's, it was after two o'clock in the afternoon.

“My, don't you look perky,” Dana said as Bridget opened the door dressed in teal and sequins. She hadn't yet told Bridget about her visit from Luc, about the wildflowers, about the fact he was sorry. There would be time for that later; for now,
Dana wouldn't disrupt Bridget's newfound contentment.

“We had a family outing this morning at the chemo room,” Bridget said. “It wasn't the same without you. Randall is
trés terrible
at pedicures.”

Bridget made tea and bemoaned the fact she'd lost her taste for wine. “I couldn't even drink one tiny sip at the gala. Not that it mattered. Oh, what an awful night that was. All that business with Caroline and Yolanda and Elise.”

They settled at the table.

“I wonder what Caroline is going to do,” Dana said.

“Leave him, I expect. The way Lauren has left Bob.”

“Has she really left him?”

“She has.”

“Dear God.”

“Oui, oui.”

They sipped.

“Lauren called a little while ago,” Bridget continued. “She said she couldn't get through to Caroline. And you didn't answer your cell. Where have you been anyway? You look tired.”

“I'll tell you later. First tell me about Lauren.” Once she started talking about her father, she knew she wouldn't want to stop, not even for news of Lauren.

“Well, she's on Nantucket! She really did it. Sold her Mikimotos and left that old geezer high and dry. She's staying in an apartment above a scrimshaw store. Can you imagine? Lauren? Living above a shop?”

Could they imagine any of them doing such a thing?

“I'm happy for her,” Bridget went on. “She sounded really, really excited. She said in a while, she might look for a man. Someone down-to-earth.”

“A far cry from Bob.”

“Or Vincent.
Mon dieu,
every time when I think of those pink diamonds on Yolanda's neck, I wonder if Vincent bought them with my two hundred thousand.”

“They
are
beautiful diamonds,” Dana said. Then something nagged a bit. “Seriously, though. When did he buy them for her? Before or after he blackmailed you?”

Bridget frowned. “After, I think. Yes, of course. The first time we saw them was only two weeks ago, at Caroline's rite-of-spring luncheon.”

The day that Vincent had been shot. Kitty had mentioned that the money for the diamonds must have come from Vincent's secret stash.

Suddenly the thing that had been nagging jerked Dana's thoughts.

“Oh my God,” she shouted as she bounded off the couch. “Kitty did it, Bridget. Kitty killed Vincent after all!”

“What?”

“She did! She killed him! I knew something bothered me when my father said it. That he never bought my mother diamonds.”

“Your father? What father?”

“Get up,” she commanded. “We're going to visit Detective Johnson.”

Bridget said Dana was insane but she stood up anyway.

Dana tugged her by the wrist. “Don't you see?” she jabbered as she led Bridget toward the door and Bridget grabbed her raincoat on the way out. “Kitty knew about Yolanda's new pink diamonds. But Vincent had just bought them for her.
The first time she'd worn them was to Caroline's luncheon
.”

Bridget nodded as she buckled the seat belt around her teal satin middle.

“It's true,” Dana kept sputtering as she turned on the ignition and backed out of the drive. “Kitty mentioned the diamonds the day Sam and I went to see her. When we asked if Vincent was broke, she said how could he have been when he'd bought those pink diamonds?”

Bridget held on to the door as Dana shoved the gearshift into drive and they sped off down the street.

“The only way Kitty could have seen them would be if she was near Caroline's that day. But she wasn't invited! She must have been outside the party, watching. She must have used the opportunity to dump Vincent's gun into Caroline's water garden.”

It all made sense to Dana. And Bridget could not disagree.

 

Detective Johnson said it would be highly irregular for Dana and Bridget to follow them to Kitty's apartment in Tarrytown. He did not comment that on top of the irregularity, Bridget was wearing pajamas.

“Please, Detective,” Dana pleaded. “If I talk to her, she might admit it. It would save you lots of time, and the state a lot of money, if she just confesses.”

She suspected it was the part about saving him time that made him acquiesce.

They bullied their way into her apartment, Detective Johnson, his three officer-sidekicks, Dana and Bridget, plus a Tarrytown cop they'd picked up on the way, which had something to do with “jurisdiction.”

“We know you did it,” Dana said. “You wouldn't have known
about Yolanda's pink diamonds unless you were watching Caroline's house the day of the luncheon.”

Kitty clutched the robe more tightly to the breasts that Sam must have fondled. Dana pushed the thought from her mind.

Then Kitty shrugged. “I told Vincent to meet me at our old house. I said the buyers for the Oriental rugs would be there.”

Detective Johnson read her her rights the same way he'd read them the day they'd found Vincent.

But Kitty's eyes had glazed over and she didn't seem to hear.

“I brought the gun Vincent bought me. He was so paranoid about muggers. Anyway, I meant to kill him. But when he said I looked good, I saw the chance to really make him pay.” She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Vincent always was so easy when his penis was involved.”

At first no one seemed to know what she meant. Then she stepped toward Detective Johnson, placed her hands flat on his chest.

“I did this,” she said, moving her hands over his chest. Then her fingers darted inside the detective's jacket. He grasped her wrist. She laughed.

“So you don't carry a gun in the same place Vincent did. Well, as usual, his was there. I called him a bastard, then I shot him with his gun.” She pointed her finger at Detective Johnson's left ear. “I guess the neighbors didn't hear that shot.”

“Then what?” the detective asked.

“Then I left Vincent there. I went to Caroline's—that was very smart of you to figure that out, Dana. You always were smarter than the rest of us.”

Dana chewed her lip.

Bridget slid one foot in and out of her silver sequin mules.

“I hid in those bushes by the water garden. Even from there, I could see Yolanda and the pink diamonds. Imagine that. They're so big I didn't need opera glasses.”

“But you went back to the house,” Johnson said.

“I tossed Vincent's gun into the water. Then yes, of course I went back. Maybe I needed to be sure the bastard was dead. Or maybe I needed to see him one more time. Whatever. When I got there, I took out my gun in case he was still breathing. When I bent down to check him, my gun went off and shot the rug, and the police were there in a flash.”

That's when Kitty laughed. “The worst part is, it really was worth it,” she said. “I've had more attention than when I was Vincent's wife. Besides, it was fun, wasn't it?”

The police officers handcuffed Kitty and led her from the place. Just before they filed down the stairs, Detective Johnson's cell phone rang.

“Johnson,” he said. Then “Yes. I see. Good God. Okay, we'll be right there.” For some reason he turned and looked at Dana and Bridget. He hesitated briefly, then motioned to his partner. “Let them take her in,” he said, pointing to the other cops. “We've got something more urgent.”

“Something more urgent? In New Falls?” Bridget laughed. “
Mon dieu
, not again.”

The detective paused, closed his eyes, took a breath. Then he rushed past them and raced down the stairs.

“Hey!” Bridget shouted over the railing. “You forgot to thank us for our help!”

The detective waved his hand. “I'll come and talk to you
both later,” he called back, which seemed rather foreboding, but then, life was like that sometimes.

Dana smiled and said, “Come on, you beauty queen. I'm going to take you to The Chocolate Flan for lunch. I have a lot to tell you, now that Vincent's killer has been caught and we can get back to normal, whatever that is.”