Goodnight Nobody Page 2

  "Mommy?"

  I could hear Sophie's voice, which sounded like it was coming from another planet. My own voice was shaking as I called back, "Just a minute, guys!"

  I got to my feet, wiping my hands convulsively against my pants, and whirled around once, then again. It wasn't until I'd slammed my hip against the breakfast bar that I finally forced myself to hold still and think. Should I call the cops? Get my kids? What if whoever had done this to Kitty was still in the house?

  Cops first, I decided. It took me what felt like forever to work my hand into my pocket, extract my cell phone, and dial 911. "Yes, hello, this is Kate Klein, and I'm visiting my friend Kitty Cavanaugh's house at Five Folly Farm Way and she's...um..." My voice broke. "She's dead. Somebody killed her."

  "That address, please?" asked the voice on the other end of the line. "Your name?" I gave it. Then I spelled it. When she asked me for my Social Security number and date of birth, I hissed, "Just send someone! Send the police...send an ambulance...send the Marines if they're around..."

  "Ma'am?"

  My voice trailed off as I saw a square of creamy, heavy-stock stationery beside Kitty's telephone. I saw ten digits that froze the blood in my veins.

  A Manhattan area code, the same number he'd had when I'd known him, the same number I'd dialed all those times when we'd lived down the hall from each other, the number that I'd struggled almost daily ever since to keep from dialing again.

  I think we have a friend in common...

  Without even thinking I hung up the phone, reached out with one shaking hand, and grabbed the note. I crumpled it and crammed it deep into my pocket. Then I shoved my bloody hands under Kitty's kitchen faucet, dried them on her cheery fall-leaf-printed dish towel, and ran down the hall on wobbly legs.

  "Mommy?" Sophie's narrow face was pale, and her big brown eyes were wide and solemn. Sam and Jack were both holding her hands, and Sam had his thumb stuck in his mouth. Sophie looked at the blood on my pants. "Did you get hurt?"

  "No," I told them. "No, honey, Mommy's fine." I fumbled a Wet One out of my bag and took a few hasty swipes at the stains. "Come on, Sophie," I said, and I gathered the boys into my arms, feeling the fierce engines of their hearts beating hard against my skin as I carried them down to the edge of the driveway and we sat there, waiting for help.

  Two

  "Excuse me," I said, raising my voice above the crackle of the scanner, the radio tuned to the all-conservative talk station, and the cluster of cops muttering by the Mr. Coffee. "Stan?"

  Stanley Bergeron, Upchurch's chief of police, gave a distracted nod. He'd parked me on a wheeled metal chair in front of an empty desk with a cracked rotary phone, beneath a yellowing sign-up sheet for Weight Watchers at Work, none of which was making my heart brim with confidence. Neither was the receptionist-slash-dispatcher, scratching her scalp with the tip of her pencil and pretending to type while hanging on every word that was uttered.

  Be cool, Kate, I told myself. Don't act guilty, or they'll think you are. But it wasn't going to be easy. Some people crack their knuckles when they're nervous. I crack jokes. I took a deep breath and tried for a tone of detachment. "Hey, can you at least tell me if I'm under arrest? Because, not to be flippant, but if I'm in jail it's really going to mess up the carpool schedule."

  "You're not under arrest, Kate," Stannie rumbled. Stan was short, barrel-chested, and jowly, with a basset hound's watery brown eyes and a droopy dun-colored mustache. He'd been a member of the New York City Police Department until September 11, when he'd traded high crime and the threat of terrorism for sleepy little Upchurch, where a big day might involve writing a speeding ticket or two, rousting teenagers from the local lovers' lane, and chasing down one of Lois Kenneally's champion corgis, who had a tendency to wander. Stan and I had gotten to know each other during my first six weeks in Upchurch, when, thanks to my failure to master the extremely expensive and very sensitive alarm system, he'd been out to my house on Liberty Lane almost every other day.

  "We just need to ask you a few more questions," Stan said.

  "What else?" I asked, trying to sound like my heart wasn't in my throat, like I wasn't still shaking, like I couldn't feel the crumpled note in my pocket bearing my former crush's phone number swelling and throbbing like a tumor. I'd thought about going to the bathroom and flushing it down the toilet. But what if it got stuck? Then I'd imagined tearing it into shreds and eating it. But what if I got sick? Better to just wait it out. I shifted in my seat, imagining I could hear the paper crackle when I moved.

  In the three hours since I'd staggered out of Kitty Cavanaugh's house, I'd called Gracie, my babysitter, to come take the kids home in my minivan. Then I'd been driven to the police station, where I'd filled out my statement and had my fingerprints taken. I'd explained three different times to three separate people why my fingerprints were on the knife's handle. My interrogators had included one cop who'd grunted in disgust and said, "Geez, lady, don't you watch CSI?" I'd widened my eyes and said, "Is it on Noggin? Because if it isn't, probably not."

  I pulled on the beaded barrettes that were holding my bangs out of my eyes. Mr. Steven had sold me on layers, but because he'd declined moving into my house and styling my hair each morning, I always had at least two inches of oh-so-trendy choppy bangs hanging in my eyes any given moment. As I reclipped them, I inquired, "Do I need a lawyer?"

  Stan shrugged. "Why would you need a lawyer? You're a witness, not a suspect. You don't have anything to hide."

  "Or do I?" I intoned. Stannie stared at me. "Just kidding," I said. Stan's face fell. "Please. Like I've got time to go around plotting murders. My husband's been in California for a week. I've barely got time to empty the dishwasher." I looked at my watch, hit redial on my cell phone again, and hung up without leaving a message when Ben's voice mail answered. I'd already left half a dozen messages--none of which he'd returned--that were variations on the pertinent theme: I stopped by Kitty Cavanaugh's house and found her dead on the kitchen floor with a knife sticking out of her back. Now I'm filling out a statement at the police station. Please call. Please come home. Please call me and come home as soon as you can.

  My husband was out in Los Angeles for some big Democratic confab, soliciting new clients for his political consulting firm. If you've lived anywhere in the Northeast for any of the past three election cycles and seen an ad where one of the candidates appears in jiggling slow motion, or in grainy mug-shot black-and-white looking like he might have little boys' body parts stashed in the basement freezer, chances are you've seen Ben's work. He's got two senators, three representatives, the governor of Massachusetts, and the United States attorney general as satisfied clients, the word "hotshot" permanently preceding his title, and more than enough money to keep the five of us safely ensconced in this bedroom community forty-five minutes outside of Manhattan, where the least expensive house costs more than a million dollars, where all the cars have four-wheel drive, and where I haven't made even a single friend.

  I shifted on the chair again as the elementary school crossing guard consulted with a fellow in blue polyester, who I was pretty sure was the postman. I wondered if everyone in town who wore a uniform had shown up for the occasion.

  I pushed the note deeper into my pocket. I'd washed my hands twice, but my fingertips were still black with the police department's ink. Stan, meanwhile, was mumbling on the telephone. The receptionist set down her pencil and slid a mirror and a tube of mascara out of her desk drawer. She tilted the mirror, pretending to fix her eyes, while staring at the action in the corner. Finally, Stan hung up the phone, had a quick word with the crossing guard, nodded at the mailman, hitched his pants up under his belly, and sauntered over to my desk.

  "Do you know Evan McKenna?"

  My heart froze. Oh God. They knew. Somehow they knew I'd taken the note with Evan's number on it. In about five seconds Stan's friendly smile would vanish, and he'd pull out the handcuffs. I'd be arrested. Thrown in jail. I'd never see my kids again
. My husband would divorce me and eventually remarry, someone tasteful and appropriate, a slender blonde with a decent backhand who'd fit right in to this town he'd chosen, and my brother-in-law would spend the rest of his life saying, "Told you so."

  I rubbed my hands along my thighs. "Why do you ask?"

  "His name came up on her caller ID."

  I felt myself relax incrementally. "I knew someone with that name in New York. We were..." I twisted my inky fingers. "We haven't been in touch in years."

  Stan nodded, dropped his bulk into a chair, and wrote something down.

  "So he's not a suspect?" I blurted, before an even worse thought occurred. "He's not...he isn't..." Interesting. All the years I'd been wishing grievous bodily harm upon Evan, all the fantasies I'd had about him expiring in a manner both excruciatingly painful and humiliating enough to ensure that his passing would appear in "News of the Weird," and now that he might actually be in danger, I couldn't stop shaking.

  Stan ignored both of my questions. "What does Mr. McKenna do?"

  "Models," I said.

  Stan didn't crack a smile. "His occupation?"

  "He was an investigator, when I knew him. He did freelance work for insurance companies, workmen's comp claims, and..." My voice trailed off. "Divorce cases. Surveillance. Cheating husbands...oh!" So maybe I was a little slow. You'd be too, if you hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in four years. I jumped to my feet so quickly that one of the barrettes flew out of my hair. "Maybe Kitty hired him because her husband was cheating on her! And her husband found out and killed her!"

  Stan stared at me. So did the postman, and the young patrol officer I recognized from the elementary school crosswalk. In my fantasy, the handcuffs and the smug brother-in-law were gone, and Stan was clapping me heartily on the back, saying, Brilliant, Kate, you solved the case! Instead, he merely flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "Do you know Philip Cavanaugh?"

  I shook my head and picked my barrette up off the floor.

  Stan scribbled something. "Let's back up. When Kitty called she said she wanted to talk to you about something. Do you know what?"

  I shook my head again. "I have no idea. I'm sorry. I wish I could be more helpful, but really, I didn't know her well at all."

  "You don't know what she wanted to discuss."

  "No. Have you talked to her husband yet?"

  Stan licked his thumb and flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "Why do you ask?"

  "Isn't it always the husband?"

  He rubbed his cheek. "Always?"

  "Well, in my experience as a journalist, it's always the husband."

  Stan was now staring at me with his mild brown eyes like a second head had sprouted out of my neck.

  "On Lifetime Television for Women too. Husband. Always. Unless it's the boyfriend."

  He started writing again. "Did Kitty have a boyfriend?"

  "I have no idea." I shrugged. "If she did, she must've had amazing time management skills. You know, with two kids..."

  The front door swung open, and a police officer walked in, holding tightly to the elbow of a tall, handsome man of about forty, a man with silvery blond hair and a gray flannel suit who looked like he'd forgotten how to walk.

  "Excuse me," said Stan, hustling over to the two of them. The receptionist abandoned the pretense that she was doing anything other than eavesdropping, setting down her mascara wand and tilting the mirror to follow the action. Stan grabbed the gray flannel man's other elbow and steered him around the corner, into his own office. The door closed with a click behind them, but not before I could hear the man start shouting.

  "My wife," he was saying. "My wife." His voice broke. I shut my eyes, remembering the weight of Kitty's body, the nauseating tearing sound her shirt had made when I'd pulled her off the floor. I looked at my watch again. Almost three o'clock. Soon Kitty's daughters would be home from school. Who would be there to tell them the news? Where would they go?

  I listened as hard as I could. Stan's voice was low and soothing, his New York accent reminding me painfully of home. I could only catch a word here and there, but I could make out all of Philip's. "My fault," I heard him groaning, as the receptionist strained forward, wide-eyed and breathless. "All my fault."

  They let me go fifteen minutes later, with instructions not to leave the state and to call if I heard anything from Evan McKenna.

  "I will," I told Stan, "but I don't think he'll call me. We don't talk," I said.

  "Things change," said Stan.

  The crosswalk officer, a pink-faced kid with a buzz cut who looked all of nineteen, drove me back to the scene of the crime. I ducked my head and racewalked past the news vans already parked in front of the Cavanaugh house and into Gracie's car. I'd barely made it to the end of Folly Farm Way before my heart was hammering so hard I was afraid to keep driving. Evan McKenna. After all this time.

  I pulled out my cell phone and began dialing the number I hadn't realized I still knew by heart. Three digits in, I hung up. What would I say if he answered? Hi, it's Kate Klein. Remember me? You broke my heart? Anyhow, I know we haven't spoken in years, and oh, by the way, I guess you knew Kitty Cavanaugh, and she's been murdered and the police need to talk to you.

  I put the phone in my pocket, set my hands on the steering wheel until they stopped shaking. I left a message for my best friend, Janie Segal, and told her to call as soon as she could. Then I drove myself back home.

  Three

  The next afternoon, after I'd schlepped the kids to Little People's Music, fed them grilled cheese and pickles for lunch, and read to them from Where Did Grandpa Go?, a treacly watercolor book written by two psychologists to "aid young readers as they process loss and grief," I piled them into the van, along with the requisite two tons of extra clothing, Wet Ones, Dora the Explorer stickers, and juice boxes, and went to the Upchurch Community Park.

  I'd lived in Upchurch for almost eight months and, by my own clear-eyed estimation, hadn't done one single thing right. I'd worn my customary cargo pants to the Red Wheel Barrow Preschool open house, when all the other mothers were in skirts and boots with heels. I'd yelled, "Son of a bitch!" when Sophie slammed my thumb in the car door, even though Rainey Wilkes, whose son was in my kids' nursery school class, merely uttered, "Fudge!" after her husband, Roger, backed over her foot in the parking lot.

  But none of this compared to the disaster that was my twins' third birthday party.

  Back in New York, where Ben and the kids and I had lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a sliver of a view of Central Park, it would have been a perfectly appropriate fete. I'd invited all of the kids in the boys' nursery school class to join us on Liberty Lane, plus half a dozen friends from New York, including Zeke, who had two mommies, and Jonah, who had two daddies, and May, whose single mother had adopted her in China the year before. I'd bought a pinata, baked a cake (from a mix, but I'd thrown in chocolate chips and a packet of pudding), and served it with punch and soda, cut-up vegetables, and a bowl full of Cheez Doodles. Ben and I had shoved our couches against the walls to make more space in the living room. For entertainment there was fingerpainting, pin the tail on the donkey, and, for the adults, Janie in a short black dress, mixing mojitos and discoursing voluminously and obscenely on her latest beau's lack of bedroom skills.

  Everybody seemed to have a good time, although I did notice that the other Upchurch mothers were keeping their kids away from the Cheez Doodles as if they were severed fingers and asking lots of questions about whether there were artificial dyes in the punch. I also saw a few of the kids staring at our back yard and asking where the pony rides were, or when the men were coming to set up the bouncy castle. I'd figured they were kidding. They weren't.

  I found that out two weeks later, when we attended a party for one of their nursery school classmates. It was held at the Upchurch Inn, and it featured a catered spread with a smoked fish buffet, a sushi chef, and a life-sized ice sculpture of the birthday boy. No plastic forks or pin the tail on th
e donkey, no nontraditional families, no partially hydrogenated snack foods or artificial anything, and no talk of inept cunnilingus over punch. The entertainment was also a cut above what we'd offered. The father, a sports agent, had set up a half-sized basketball court in the parking lot and had somehow prevailed upon the entire starting lineup of the Knicks to make the trip to the suburbs and play H-O-R-S-E with the party guests. And lose.

  Ben didn't say a word, but I knew how upset he was from the way his lips were pressed together, and how he jabbed at the radio buttons extra hard as we drove home.

  "I didn't know!" I protested, as the kids, wiped out from the excitement of the four-tiered birthday cake, the personalized goody bags, and the thrill of meeting the seven-foot-tall center, snoozed in their car seats. "Honest to God, if I'd had any idea, I would have hired a clown!"

  Ben sighed noisily.

  "Or a circus!"

  "You're with those women all day long. You didn't know?"

  I shrugged. "I'm sorry," I told him.

  "Next time, ask someone" was all he said.

  I promised that I would, even though I didn't think it would help. The die had been cast. If our disastrous birthday party hadn't sealed the deal, Sophie's a cappella rendition of "Don't Mess with My Toot-Toot" at the Red Wheel Barrow's "Every Child Is Talented" show would have done it. Not only had the teacher sent a note home about the need for "more appropriate lyrics" for future performances, they'd had a schoolwide conference about it, complete with a child psychologist from Greenwich on hand to answer any questions the kids might have had about what constituted a toot-toot and who was allowed to touch theirs.

  "Don't mess with my toot-toot," I sang, piloting the minivan into a parking spot. "Don't mess with my toot-toot. I know you have another woman. So don't mess with my toot-toot."

  I did feel a twinge as I climbed out of the driver's seat in the town park's parking lot, wondering what kind of morally deficient opportunist would leverage a neighbor's murder to improve her social standing. I wasn't even sure it would help. I wasn't at the bottom of the Upchurch mother totem pole; I wasn't even on the pole. I could barely see the pole. If one woman announced that she was using recycled-paper diapers, the mother next to her was using cloth, and the woman next to her was using cloth diapers she'd personally sewn. If one mother was allowing her child to eat only organic food, then Mommy Number Two was feeding her kid organic vegetarian cuisine, and the mommy after her was an organic cruelty-free vegan who gave her children only cucumbers and carrots grown in her backyard, nourished with mulch she'd composted herself.