Last to Die

TWENTY

AS JANE STEPPED OUT OF HER CAR, SHE COULD ALREADY HEAR THE shouting. She hurried past three familiar vehicles parked at crazy angles in front of her mother’s house and banged on the front door. Banged again when no one answered, probably because they’d gone deaf inside from the racket.

“Finally, the police arrive,” said a cranky voice behind her.

Jane turned to see Angela’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Kaminsky, glaring at her from the sidewalk. The woman had looked ancient twenty years ago, and the passage of decades had changed nothing, as if she’d been frozen in time, her face forever cemented in a scowl.

“This neighborhood’s gone all to pot,” said Mrs. Kaminsky. “All this running around with strange men.”

“Excuse me?” said Jane.

“Your mother used to be respectable. A good married woman.”

“My dad left her.”

“So that’s an excuse to run wild?”

“Wild? My mom?”

The front door opened. “Thank God you’re here!” said Korsak. “It’s two against one!” He grabbed Jane’s hand. “Come help me.”

“You see?” said Mrs. Kaminsky, pointing at Korsak. “He’s what I’m talking about!”

Jane followed Korsak into the house, relieved to close the front door against the neighbor’s disapproving stare. “What do you mean, two against one?”

“I’m all on my own here. Your dad and Frankie keep hammering away, trying to get your mom to dump me.”

“What does Mom say?”

“Who knows what she’ll do? Any minute now, she’s gonna snap.”

Kicking all these guys out of her house would be a good first step, thought Jane as she followed the sound of voices toward the kitchen. Of course this battle would have to be in the kitchen, where a sharp knife was always handy.

“It’s like you’ve been taken over by pod people, and now you can’t think for yourself,” Jane’s father said.

“Ma, we don’t know you anymore,” Frankie chimed in.

“I just want my old Angela back. My wife and me together, the way we used to be.”

Angela was sitting at the table, clutching her head as though to shut out the voices assaulting her.

“Dad, Frankie,” said Jane. “Leave her alone.”

Angela looked up at her daughter with desperate eyes. “What do I do, Janie? They’re making me so confused!”

“There’s no confusion here,” said Frank. “We’re married, and that’s that.”

“Last week, you were getting divorced,” said Korsak.

“That was a misunderstanding.”

“And her name was Sandie,” muttered Angela.

“She meant nothing!”

“Not what I heard,” said Korsak.

“This has nothing to do with you,” said Jane’s brother. “Why are you still here, asshole?”

“ ’Cause I love this woman, okay? After your dad walked out, I was the one who stood by her. I was the one who made her laugh again.” Korsak placed a possessive hand on Angela’s shoulder. “Now your dad needs to move on.”

“Don’t touch my wife.” Frank slapped Korsak’s hand away from Angela.

Korsak bristled. “Did you just hit me?”

“What, you mean that little tap?” Frank gave Korsak’s arm a hard shove. “Or did you mean that?”

“Dad, don’t,” said Jane.

Korsak’s face flushed a dangerous red. With both hands he shoved Frank Rizzoli backward against the kitchen counter. “That was assaulting a police officer.”

Jane’s brother shoved himself between the two older men. “Hey. Hey.”

“You ain’t a police officer now!” Frank Senior yelled. “And no wonder! Fat ass with a bad ticker!”

“Dad,” Jane pleaded as she swept the nearby wood block of kitchen knives out of his reach. “Stop it. Both of you!”

Korsak gave his shirt collar a tug. “I’ll overlook what just happened here, for Angela’s sake. But don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

“Get outta my house, asshole,” said Frank Senior.

“Your house? You walked out on her,” pointed out Korsak. “That makes this her house.”

“Which I’ve been paying the mortgage on for the past twenty years. Now you think you can just horn in on my property?”

“Property?” Angela suddenly snapped straight, as if that word had driven a spear down her spine. “Property? Is that what I am to you, Frank?”

“Ma,” said Frankie. “Dad didn’t mean it that way.”

“He most certainly did.”

“No I didn’t,” said Frank. “I’m just saying …”

Angela shot him a thousand-volt look. “I am nobody’s property. I am my own woman.”

“You tell him, babe,” said Korsak.

Frank and Frankie snapped simultaneously: “You shut up.”

“I want you out of here,” Angela said, rising from her seat at the table, a Valkyrie ready for battle. “Go,” she ordered.

Frank and Korsak looked at each other uncertainly.

“Well, you heard her,” said Korsak.

“I mean both of you. All of you,” said Angela.

Korsak shook his head in bewilderment. “But Angie—”

“You’re giving me a headache with all this tugging and yelling. It’s my kitchen, my house, and I want it back. Now.”

“Ma, that sounds like a good idea,” said Frankie. “A great idea.” He gave his father a pat on the back. “Come on, Dad. Give her time and she’ll come back to her senses.”

“That,” said Angela, “will not help your father’s case.” She glared at the interlopers in her kitchen. “Well, what are you all waiting for?”

“He leaves first,” said Frank, pointing at Korsak.

“Why should it be me?”

“We’re all leaving, Ma,” said Jane. She took Korsak’s arm and pulled him toward the front door. “Frankie, you get Dad out of here.”

“Not you, Jane,” said Angela. “You stay.”

“But you just said—”

“I want the men to leave. They’re the ones giving me this headache. I want you to stay, so we can talk.”

“Take care of this, Janie,” said Frankie, and she couldn’t miss the threatening note in his voice. “Remember, we’re a family. That doesn’t change.”

Sometimes to my regret, she thought as the men left the kitchen, trailing a cloud of hostility so thick she could almost smell it. She didn’t dare say a word, didn’t move a muscle, until she heard the front door shut, then the sound of three car engines simultaneously revving up. Sighing with relief, she slid the block of kitchen knives back to its usual space on the counter and looked at her mother. Now, this was a strange turn of events. Frankie was the child Angela always seemed proudest of, her Marine Corps son who could do no wrong, even while he was tormenting his siblings.

But today Angela hadn’t asked for Frankie, she’d asked for Jane, and now that they were alone together Jane took the time to study her mother. Angela’s face was still flushed from her outburst, and with that color in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes, she didn’t look like any man’s property. She looked like a woman who should be clutching a spear and a battleax, steam hissing from her nostrils. But as they heard the three cars drive away, that warrior seemed to wilt, leaving only a weary middle-aged woman who slumped into her chair and buried her head in her hands.

“Mom?” said Jane.

“All I wanted was another chance at love. Another chance to feel alive again.”

“What do you mean, alive? You didn’t feel that way?”

“I felt invisible, that’s what I felt. Every night, putting dinner in front of your father. Watching him suck it down without a single compliment. I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be when you’re married for thirty-five years. How was I supposed to know things could be different? I figured that was that. My kids are grown, I have a house with a nice backyard. Who am I to complain?”

“I never knew you were unhappy, Mom.”

“I wasn’t. I was just …” Angela shrugged. “Here. Breathing. You, you’re still a newlywed. You and Gabriel, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, and I hope you never do. It’s a terrible feeling, to think the best years of your life are over. He made me feel that way.”

“But you were so upset when he left.”

“Of course I was upset! He left me for another woman!”

“So … you didn’t want him. But you didn’t want her to get him, either.”

“Why’s that so hard to understand?”

Jane shrugged. “I guess I get it.”

“And she’s the one who ended up being sorry. The bimbo.” Angela laughed, a loud, cynical cackle.

“I think they’re both sorry. That’s why Dad wants to come home. I’m guessing it’s a little late for that?”

Angela’s lip trembled, and she looked down at the table where her hands rested. Decades of cooking, of burns from hot grease and nicks from kitchen knives, had left battle scars on those hands. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

“You just told me how unhappy you were.”

“I was. Then Vince came along, and I felt like a new woman. A young woman. We did crazy things together, things I never dreamed I’d do, like shooting a gun. And skinny-dipping.”

“TMI, Mom.” Way too much information.

“He takes me dancing, Janie. Do you remember the last time your father took me dancing?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. That’s the point.”

“Okay.” Jane sighed. “Then we’ll deal with this. It’s your decision, and whatever it is, I’ll back you up.” Even if it meant wearing a pink clown dress to the wedding.

“That’s just it, Janie. I can’t decide.”

“You just told me how happy Vince makes you.”

“But Frankie said the magic word. Family.” Angela looked up with tormented eyes. “That means something. All those years together. Having you and your brothers. Your father and I, we have a history, and that’s something I can’t just walk away from.”

“So history is more important than what makes you happy?”

“He’s your father, Jane. Does that mean so little to you?”

Jane gave a confused shake of the head. “This has nothing to do with me. It’s about you and what you want.”

“What if what I want makes me feel guilty? What if I marry Vince and spend the rest of my life regretting that I didn’t give our family a second chance? Frankie, for one, will never forgive me. And then there’s Father Flanagan and everyone at church. And the neighbors …”

“Forget the neighbors.” They’re a lost cause.

“So you see, there’s a lot to consider here. It was so much easier when I was the wronged woman, and everyone was saying You go, girl! Now it’s all flipped around and I’m the one breaking up the family. You know how hard that is for me? Being the scarlet woman?”

Better scarlet, thought Jane, than depressed and gray. She reached across the table to touch her mother’s arm. “You deserve to be happy, that’s all I can say. Don’t let Father Flanagan or Mrs. Kaminsky or Frankie talk you into doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“I wish I could be like you, so sure of yourself. I look at you and I think, how did I raise such a strong daughter? Someone who makes breakfast, feeds her baby, and then takes down perps?”

“I’m strong because you made me that way, Ma.”

Angela laughed. Ran a hand across her eyes. “Yeah, right. Look at me, a babbling mess. Torn between my lover and my family.”

“This member of the family wants you to stop worrying about us.”

“Impossible. When they say your family is flesh and blood, that’s exactly what it means. If I lose Frankie because of this, it’ll be like cutting off my own arm. When you lose your family, you lose everything.”

THOSE WORDS ECHOED IN Jane’s head as she drove home that evening. Her mother was right: If you lost your family, you lost everything. She’d seen what happened to people who lost husbands or wives or children to murder. She’d seen how grief shriveled lives, how faces aged overnight. As hard as she might try to offer them comfort, to promise them closure through justice, she did not really know, or want to know, the depths of their suffering. Only another victim would truly understand.

Which was why a school like Evensong existed. It was a place for the wounded to heal, among those who understood.

She’d spoken with Maura that morning, but had not updated her about Zapata’s fate. With their prime suspect dead, and Teddy presumably no longer in danger, they had to decide whether it might be time to bring him back to Boston. She pulled into her apartment parking lot and was about to call Maura’s cell phone when she remembered there was no reception at Evensong. Scrolling down her call log, she found the landline number that Maura had last called from, and dialed it.

Six rings later, a tremulous voice answered: “Evensong.”

“Dr. Welliver, is that you? It’s Detective Rizzoli.” She waited for an answer. “Hello, are you there?”

“Yes. Yes.” A startled laugh. “Oh my God, they’re so beautiful!”

“What’s beautiful?”

“I’ve never seen birds like those. And the sky, such strange colors …”

“Um, Dr. Welliver? May I speak to Dr. Isles?”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Could you ask her to call me back? You’ll be seeing her at dinner, right?”

“I’m not going. Everything tastes funny today. Oh! Oh!” Welliver gave a squeal of delight. “If you could just see these birds! They’re so close, I could touch them!”

Jane heard her set down the receiver. Heard footsteps walking away.

“Dr. Welliver? Hello?”

There was no answer.

Jane frowned as she disconnected, wondering what species of bird could have so enchanted the woman. She had a sudden vision of pterodactyls swooping in over the Maine woods.

In the world that was Evensong, anything seemed possible.