Unspeakable (12 page)

“I'm all for that,” Olivia sighed. They walked to the front door together.

The alarm went off—as it always did whenever they stepped inside the house. Clay reached for the box on the wall on the other side of the front door and punched in the code. The beeping ceased.

Olivia had a feeling something wasn't right as soon as they were inside the living room. She could smell it. Flies were buzzing around, and Olivia fanned them away.

“What the hell?” she heard Clay mutter.

Her nose told her some food in the kitchen was going bad. Maybe it was something in the garbage. As she headed for the kitchen, the smell got worse—and so did the flies.

Olivia saw it from the dining room. The refrigerator and freezer doors were open. Food had been emptied out and thrown on the linoleum floor. The cupboards had been ransacked, too. Her glassware and plates were broken. Shards littered the counter—along with the floor, which was covered with a mound of spoiled food and garbage. Flies buzzed around the pool of spilt milk and juice. Yogurt oozed out of smashed containers. Melted ice cream, spoiled meat, and lettuce mingled with cans of soda and beer. The hot summer sun had been streaming through the kitchen window all day, and now a rank odor filled the room. The congealing mess had attracted an army of ants—as well as the flies.

“What the hell is going on here?” Clay asked, coming up behind her.

Olivia turned and hurried into the bedroom. When she saw all her clothes on the bed, she cried out. Her closet and dresser drawers had been emptied out. Horrified, Olivia rummaged through the pile of torn, shredded garments. Someone had hacked away at every piece with a knife or a pair of shears. The same someone had scrawled
BITCH
in lipstick over the smashed mirror on her dresser.

Olivia didn't have to wonder who that someone was.

 

 

According to the police, Mrs. Tipton claimed she'd been with a friend in Beaverton the entire day. Her friend backed her up on it, too. Apparently, Layne's mother became quite indignant with the police, and maintained she was the one being harassed now. The police had to let her go.

It was a mystery how anyone could have broken in, entered the security code to silence the alarm, done all that damage, and then set the alarm again before leaving and locking up. It made no sense. So much of the food Olivia had just recently bought had been destroyed. Anything that had been opened or unsealed before the break-in had to be thrown out. Olivia couldn't be sure whether or not it had been tainted. Everything in their medicine chest and all her toiletries had to be tossed out as well.

Oddly, none of Clay's things had been touched. Their big-screen TV in the living room, his precious music/entertainment system, his computer, and his clothes had been spared.

Stranger still was the change in Clay's attitude after speaking with the police alone that night. He'd walked with them to the squad car, and stayed out there for fifteen minutes. Olivia had asked him what they'd discussed, and he'd said, “Nothing.” But after that, he no longer ranted about crazy Mrs. Tipton.

“I'm sure the old bat got it all out of her system,” he maintained. “Let's just have the insurance pay for the damage to your Beetle, and we'll get you some new clothes. The quicker we can move on from this, the better off we'll be. . . .”

Olivia was baffled. Clay didn't seem to understand how violated she felt. Their home had been invaded. She practically had to insist they change their locks and the alarm code. She mentioned that the police were shuffling their feet with this investigation, and instead of agreeing with her, Clay replied, “I'm sure they're doing all they can.” He kept talking about “moving on.”

The auto body shop had her VW repaired and ready for pickup the following Wednesday. Olivia hadn't slept much the night before. That morning, she sat at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee. She wore a new bathrobe she didn't like as much as her old one. Clay, in his suit and tie, sat across from her with his Special K and juice. Following the break-in, she'd cleaned up the kitchen the best she could, but milk had seeped and dried in the cracks under the cabinets. To combat the foul odor, Olivia had set out two Renuzit “Ocean Breeze” air fresheners. So now the kitchen smelled like fabric softener—with a hint of sour milk.

“I think I figured out what's going on here,” she said over her coffee cup.

“What's going on where?” Clay asked, hunched over his cereal.

She frowned at him. “Tell me the truth. When you talked with the police the other night, what did they say to you?”

“Nothing they didn't already tell you, just the same old shit they said all night long.”

Olivia sighed. “So they believed Mrs. Tipton and her friend. They didn't think she had anything to do with what happened here—and what happened to my car.”

Clay shrugged. “I guess.”

Sitting back, she folded her arms. “There's something you're not telling me. The police aren't investigating this anymore, are they?”

Clay put down his spoon. It clanked against the cereal bowl. “No, they aren't.”

“They think
I
did it, don't they? They think I destroyed about a thousand dollars' worth of food, plates, and glasses. Then I went into my bedroom and slashed up my wardrobe. And for good measure, I wrote a nasty note to myself on my dresser mirror. Is that right?”

Clay squirmed in his chair and glanced down at his cereal bowl.

“Did they have any theories as to why I would do such a thing?” she asked. “Did they say I did it for attention? Or was I acting out on some guilt complex?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Honey, they suggested it might be someone we know—or yeah, perhaps you might have—”

“Clay, Friday morning, I left for work fifteen minutes after you did,” she interrupted, raising her voice. “I was at work all day—until I called you about the car.”

He said nothing.

“Do they think I did that, too?” she asked, incredulous. “Do they think I sabotaged my own car? Do
you
think so?”

He shook his head. “Sweetheart—”

“So—I'm supposed to have done that number on my car
and
our house? Is that why I practically had to demand we change our locks? I mean, why change the locks if I'm the one doing all the damage, right? Is that why you keep telling me, ‘Let's just move on . . .'?”

“I think it's too early in the morning for this right now,” he said wearily. “I haven't had enough coffee yet.” The chair let out a squeak, sliding against the floor as he stood up. He took his cereal bowl and juice glass to the sink. “Honey, I'm on your side here. The police mentioned that since you've been through a lot lately, it was possible you could have had a meltdown and pulled this stunt. But I basically told them they were full of shit.”

From her chair, she watched him rinse his dish and glass. “Right now, I just want things to be normal again.” He shut off the water, and then dried his hands. “I truly believe that crazy old Tipton bitch has gotten it out of her system now. She knows she's toast if she tries anything else. If we let this keep eating away at us, then she'll win. So I'd like to forget the whole mess and get on with our lives.”

Olivia didn't respond. She sat there and stared down at the kitchen table.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Listen, I need to get to work. We can talk about this tonight. You sure you don't need a lift to the auto body place?”

“No, I'll take a taxi,” she said quietly. She couldn't believe it. A minute after telling her the police thought she was crazy, Clay was going off to work—like it was just another morning. Olivia kept staring at the table. She listened to him getting ready to leave.

She heard the front door shut, and then she started to cry.

 

 

In the taxi on her way to Curtis Auto Body Repair, Olivia kept mulling over how Mrs. Tipton had managed to pull it off. Crazy as she was, Layne's mother must have been pretty damn cunning. How did she do it?

The house was empty for hours at a time, especially back when Olivia had been in the hospital. Mrs. Tipton could have hired someone to break in and figure out the codes—or get an extra key made. Hell, she could have had the same hoodlum-for-hire trash the place on Friday—while she was in Beaverton with her friend.

One big glitch with this scenario was that—according to Layne—his mother didn't have two dimes to rub together. So how could Mrs. Tipton afford to pay someone to carry out her dirty work? And any housebreaker-for-hire certainly would have stolen a few items for himself. Clay had a lot of expensive gadgets. But nothing was missing from the house.

Olivia could almost understand why the cops thought she'd done the job herself. A distraught woman snaps, trashing her own house and her car—it was the easiest, most logical explanation, considering the circumstances. But they were wrong. And so was Clay—for even thinking it was possible.

That hurt the most.

From the backseat of the cab, Olivia noticed the dumpy-looking storefront with an open garage door. It was up ahead and on the right. They had a blue sign above the garage with yellow lettering: C
URTIS
A
UTO
B
ODY
R
EPAIR.
The cabdriver pulled over in front of the place. It was a busy, commercial area—with four lanes of heavy traffic and cars zooming by. Olivia thought she might get run down as she paid the driver through his open window.

The taxi pulled away, and she started toward the garage entrance.

She recognized the voice—and then she heard a car's tires screeching.

Olivia turned around and saw the stout woman running towards her from across the busy street. A second car skidded to a stop and honked at her, but the woman ignored it. She had short-cropped gray hair and big tinted glasses. Wearing a peasant blouse and unflattering khakis, she carried a large straw purse. She had sort of a determined waddle as she barreled toward her. “Olivia Barker-Bischoff!” she repeated, sounding slightly crazy.

On the sidewalk in front of the auto body shop, Olivia just stared at the woman who she knew must be Layne's mother.

Mrs. Tipton was out of breath and sweating by the time she reached the sidewalk. “I thought that was you!” she said, shaking a finger at her. Olivia backed up a little.

“Listen, you,” she said, catching her breath. “If the police bother me again with another one of your wild, false accusations, I'll get a lawyer and sue you! I'm sick of your persecution and harassment—”

Olivia let out a stunned laugh. “You're sick of
my
harassment? Are you serious?”

Mrs. Tipton glared at her from behind the tinted glasses. “Outside of a couple of phone calls you certainly had coming, I haven't done a thing to you!”

“You're lying,” Olivia shot back. “I know you broke into my house somehow. And I know you did that number on my car, too. What—are you following me now?”

“Why in God's name would I be following you? I don't want anything to do with you. And for your information, I don't break into people's homes or ruin their cars—”

“No, you hire someone to do it for you.”

“Lies!” Mrs. Tipton declared. “Your filthy soul will rot in hell! It's bad enough you turned my son against me and poisoned his thinking with all of your modern psychological muck. He was fine before he started seeing you—”

“Layne wasn't
fine
, Mrs. Tipton,” Olivia cut in. “He was deeply troubled—thanks mostly to his upbringing. Whatever you do or say to me, it won't change the fact that you were a horrible, abusive mother—”

“That's not true!”

“Layne told me some of the things you did to him when he was a child, the beatings and the cruel punishments. You should have been thrown in jail, you sick, crazy . . .”

Mrs. Tipton hauled back and took a swing at her, but Olivia recoiled. The older woman missed her. She stumbled and grabbed a streetlight pole to keep from falling. She started to cry. “You're lying!” she screamed. “Layne wouldn't tell stories like that! He was a good boy. . . .”

Olivia could only shake her head at the woman. She'd already said way too much. She took a deep breath. “Just leave me alone, Mrs. Tipton.”

With tears streaming down her face, Layne's mother started to back away. “You're a lying, evil bitch!” she screamed over the traffic noise. “I don't have to listen to this filth. . . .”

Olivia turned and headed toward the auto body shop.

“I wish I
had
broken into your house. I would have burned it to the ground!” she heard her yell. Mrs. Tipton started to scream something else, but the sound of screeching tires drowned her out.

Olivia swiveled around to see an old silver Buick LeSabre careening toward Layne's oblivious mother. The older woman was still screaming and shaking her fist at her. All at once the car plowed into her with a horrible thud. It knocked Mrs. Tipton into the air. Her big purse flew in a different direction. She toppled over the hood and smashed against the windshield, shattering the glass.

Something hit Olivia in the leg. She glanced down and saw it was the woman's shoe.

Stunned, she looked up again as the car ground to a halt. Mrs. Tipton's lifeless body just rolled over at the base of the windshield and stayed there. Blood started seeping through her clothes.

Olivia heard other tires screeching and people screaming. Someone from the shop ran out and yelled,
“What happened?”
over and over.