Lie Still

28

Twenty seconds into my conversation with Renata Tadynski I realized I liked her, a lot.

“Thank you so much for calling me back.” My voice was fused with relief.

“Why wouldn’t I? I worked through that period of my life years ago. So what’s up?”

“Do you remember me?”

“Yes. The pretty Catholic girl who sat beside me that day pretending to read The Cider House Rules. I was kind of mixed on the whole abortion thing at the time. You brought me some water when I felt a little dizzy. You told me everything was going to be OK.”

“How did you know I was Catholic?”

“You mouthed along with me to the Prayer of Saint Michael as I worked the hell out of those rosary beads. My grandmother gave them to me at my first holy communion. She loved that prayer.”

She began to recite in a melodic, practiced voice.

“Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.”

My eyes closed. My chin dropped. I fell into the river of her words.

“May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through this world seeking the ruin of souls.

“Amen,” she said.

“Amen,” I echoed. It was this kind of mystical moment that always overruled any of my doubts about believing in God. He showed up. He spoke through strangers. If only the holy rollers didn’t give these experiences such a bad name.

I knew in a flash of certainty that Renata never exacted revenge on Pierce. She’d left that to a higher power.

“You’re a nun.” I just knew.

“You can tell? Not sure if that’s good or bad. Eleven years this January. Saved my sanity, literally. I help kids who have suffered more than I could ever imagine. And they help by letting me.”

She paused. “You didn’t call for my sappy life story.”

No, but it was somewhat comforting to hear. I broke out the little speech I’d rehearsed in my head.

“I’ve received some strange letters over the years. Hateful ones. I always thought they were from Pierce’s mother. But recently I received a package in the mail. The campus police report from the night Pierce Martin… raped me. Nothing else. Just that report. I’d never seen it. I’d never told many people about Pierce. Even my husband. I just wondered if, well, if I was the only one.”

“That’s weird. How scary for you, Emily. I’ve never received any letters. But I didn’t report anything officially on… my rape. My current address and phone number aren’t listed. Someone has to go through the church to get to me unless they call my cell phone. And I only give that out to parents, a few students I worry about, and select friends and relatives.”

“I have to ask, why are you still talking to Brad? A reporter?” It came out a little accusing.

“Because he’s much more than that. He saved my life. I was an hour away from killing myself after the episode with the police. I’d planned it. Bought the rope. Brad called for a quote while I sat on my dorm bed with a pair of scissors in my hand, figuring how many feet I needed. He could hear something in my voice, called my parents, biked over, and stayed with me until they got there nine hours later. He never got his quote.”

Brad saved lives. He biked. Over the phone line, he picked up that a good Catholic girl was calculating the number of inches of rope she needed to hang herself, while I sat inches from her the hour before and didn’t have a clue.

“I was wondering if you knew the full names of any of the other girls,” I said weakly. “I’d like to ask them the same thing. Maybe Brad told you… he thought it would be unethical for him to give me the names.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s got the Jewish guilt thing going. Me, I’d like to help you, which is probably why he pointed you my way. I’ll need to call my parents, though. I’m sure they saved the document with all the names in it. They save everything.”

“Document?”

“That lawsuit drawn up by one of the girls’ fathers, some big-shot attorney. The sorority girl’s dad. Brook… Everheart? I think that’s it. Didn’t you ever see it? I’m pretty sure your name was in it, along with the rest of the girls whose pictures ran in the paper. It was never filed. Just used as blackmail against Windsor officials to keep this whole thing quiet. Mr. Everheart suggested to them that they were looking at a very large judgment. It was overkill-the university was bending over backward to make the situation right. They were horrified that our photos were printed in the school paper. Of course, I only knew all of this after the fact. I spent a couple of months at what my family likes to call a mental health spa. You didn’t know about the document? Didn’t Brook’s father call your parents, too? He must have. I don’t think they could have used your name in the suit otherwise.”

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “I spent some time abroad after that.”

“Maybe your parents wanted to take care of it for you. Try to protect you from thinking about it. As if they could. Some nights when I’m staring at the ceiling, it still comes back. He put his pocketknife to my throat. There’s a little scar there. I think if he’d moved the knife up a few inches and cut my face, I would have reported him to the police instead of trying to kill myself. It’s weird. How guilt works.” Her voice quivered. “I don’t know about your parents, but mine were torn to pieces. That was the worst part. I honestly think my father would have killed Pierce if someone else hadn’t beaten him to it.”

A high-pitched, drama-girl scream rang out in Renata Tadynski’s world. She put a hand over the phone and her muffled voiced called out, “Demitri Owens, knock it off!” Then, to me, “My English lit class is filing in, so I’ve got to go. One of my best students just unhooked a girl’s bra. Reached right under her shirt, two feet in front of a nun. It doesn’t work to threaten them with burning in hell anymore. A little devil with horns doesn’t seem that scary compared with some of their real-life daddies. I’ll try to round up those names for you. In the meantime, I’ll get some prayers going with Mary.”

I placed the phone gently on the nightstand, careful not to disturb the gun, and lay flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling fan, hoping the spinning blades could lull me to sleep. The fan creaked and wobbled as the blades whipped around. I imagined it falling, crashing the plaster ceiling on top of me and the baby. That’s how Mike would find his family, cut up by a killer fan.

Could I possibly have two stalkers? One who left the rape report and one who smoked cigars? Maybe they could meet and duke it out. Take care of each other. In less than a minute, I sat at the kitchen table, powering up my laptop.

Brook Everheart.

I signed on to Facebook and searched for her name. Brook Everheart Marcum in Chicago, Illinois. A good guess. I thought for a second and typed a Facebook message to her:

Hi, Brook. We attended Windsor together thirteen years ago. I’m trying to find some of my fellow alums and sorority sisters.

Then I tacked an exclamation point to the end of every sentence because I figured that’s what a sorority sister would do.

Vague enough. Only the sorority part wasn’t true. I sent the message and made a friend request. Now I’d play the waiting game. I’m not sure what I expected to glean from viewing Brook’s Facebook page if she confirmed our friendship. But something.

I punched in Black Patch Cigar Co., found the main website, and was rewarded with a picture of my pirate feminist. A link to a blog declared it one of the best cigars in North America. A twenty-count box cost upward of a $100, and a bizarre and confusing hexagonal chart said the cigar leaned more toward spice and nut than peat and cocoa. At least that’s what I think it said. This was a whole new way to fall down the rabbit hole.

My cell phone sang and danced on the desk.

I breathed out slowly after reading the screen.

DUNN, LETICIA.

“Hi,” I said.

“This is Leticia Lee Dunn,” she said, as if we hadn’t shared an awkward hug less than twenty-four hours ago. “I am organizing a small memorial service for Caroline Warwick in my home, since that butcher from Dallas isn’t going to give up her body anytime soon. Tonight at seven-thirty. I know it’s late notice, but a lot of us are suffering. I expect you will be there?”

“Sure.” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“It’s women only.”

When I didn’t reply, she said, “So don’t bring Mike.”

“I got that.”

“Would you like to speak a few words?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t.” I spoke firmly. “I didn’t know her that well. Actually, I’m not sure I can make it, after all.”

“If I can pick you up at the airport when I’m out-of-my-mind bereaved, you can show up and say a few words about Caroline. I’ll put you down for five minutes. No, ten. Don’t be late.”

At 7:29 p.m., I drew the station wagon to a stop at the end of a long line of vehicles parked in a string down the curb of a bland, upscale street called La Mirada. Both sides were crammed with million-dollar brick homes barely distinguishable from one another.

About twenty seconds later, Jesse pulled in behind me and switched off his motor and headlights. I flipped him a thumbs-up. I had briefly poked my head in his car window and met Parker the dog before heading off to Letty’s express memorial.

Parker had licked my hand. Jesse had called me ma’am. Other than the ma’am and the 9 mm lying on the seat beside him, it sort of felt like a protective teenage brother had my back.

I walked quickly, scanning the numbers on the houses, pretty sure my destination was ten houses up with a large, glowing display of some kind in the front yard. The street was void of human life. My low heels clicked on the sidewalk. Not a tree big enough to hide anyone. The only other sound in the failing twilight was the hiss of a sprinkler system spitting on. I counted eight white Lexuses and five black BMWs before deciding it wasn’t that interesting to count them.

Letty’s cushy little neighborhood, made up of nondescript 5,000-square-foot houses and short lawns, wasn’t in Caroline Warwick’s astronomical league but it was more posh than any place I’d ever dreamed of living. The brick landscape grew up out of flat Texas farmland, one more layer of life on top of centuries-old Indian graves and thousand-year-old fossils and million-year-old dinosaur bones.

On time in Texas must mean Get there early. I picked up the pace, regretting my wardrobe choice-a dark blue suit with the waist button undone, a gray blouse that gapped a little between the top buttons if I moved my arms too much, and my mother’s pearls.

I used a Manolo Blahnik toe to scoot a Billabong skateboard left carelessly in the middle of the sidewalk onto a lawn. In Manhattan, it would have disappeared less than a minute after the kid abandoned it. Every kid on this block probably had at least one to spare.

I was right about one thing. The street address was unnecessary. Letty’s house glowed with candles in every window, like a New England Christmas. She’d planted an enormous memorial wreath of red carnations in the middle of her lawn, lit in the dusk by the glare of a portable spotlight, its orange cord snaking across the grass. A white ribbon with CAROLINE splashed in glitter stretched across the front of the wreath. A plastic gold cross, about twice the size of a priest’s, dangled from the top.

I twisted the doorknob, hoping to sneak in, and found myself in the entrance hall, struck dumb by a giant framed color photograph. Not of Letty’s children. Not a family portrait. A blown-up, professional head shot of Letty in better days. Misty hadn’t lied. The old Letty reminded me of a prettier, more feminine Cameron Diaz. Three candles flickered on the table underneath the portrait. The real memorial.

I followed the cacophony of voices to the back of the house, noting that Letty’s interior design didn’t match her flashy wardrobe. Tasteful but dull, and Letty was neither. She had handed someone a blank check and stayed out of the way. It felt light and airy, with creamy walls, flowered and paisley upholstery, and generic fine prints.

I stopped short at the entrance to the family room and kitchen. The atmosphere was electric, almost frenzied. The loud, dissonant sound of an orchestra warming up-only, the violins and bassoons and clarinets were forty women, shoulder to shoulder, chattering chaotically. A killer in their town.

Two sets of French doors led out to a brick patio and a pool filled with floating candles. White, rented folding chairs lined either side of the pool and the grassy area behind it. A small podium with a microphone was set up by the shallow end with a white baby grand piano beside it. The man in the tux on the piano bench appeared rented, too.

None of the guests turned her head to acknowledge me as I veered toward the kitchen. I slipped around to the mosaic-tiled kitchen island, big enough to lay a twin mattress on top and go to sleep, and grabbed a glass and one of the first bottles of wine out of a line of pewter ice buckets. I took a sip of decent pinot, stuffed a boiled shrimp in my mouth, and wondered about the inch-high plastic cups with lids lined up on the kitchen island like tiny party favors.

“Please feel free to take a sample. I’ve just started selling. The company I work for is the Mary Kay of freeze-dried fruits and vegetables. It’s the wave of the future, with terrorists and all.” The woman speaking at my elbow was slightly pudgy, about forty-five, in colorfully striped glasses and a black pantsuit.

She pried open one of the plastic containers to reveal a shriveled collection of dead things. A pea, a banana slice, a bit of carrot. I think I recognized a strawberry. And there was something brown and unrecognizable, like a tiny tick.

“They’ve got a shelf life of ten years. You soak them in water and they jump right back to life.” She picked up a nearby jar of water floating with small objects that looked like something drained out of the garbage disposal. “Would you like a taste?”

“Tammy, I think Letty said she’d give you a few minutes to make your pitch at the end of the service, right? Do you even know this woman’s name?” My rescuer, a schoolteacherish sort, placed her body between Tammy and me, like she was setting a basketball pick, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Letty’s cousin, Lee Ann Womack.”

“You always try to control everything, Lee Ann,” Tammy whined.

“I’m Emily Page, the new chief’s wife.” I thought it might ease things to finally interject. “Nice to meet you both.” This was a new thing for me, identifying myself by my husband’s career, and I had no idea why in the hell I was doing it.

Tammy nodded, irritated, and stalked off. Lee Ann guided me to the center of the family room, where I was instantly mesmerized by the giant wedding portrait of Letty and Harry over the fireplace. Squint a little, and they morphed into Cameron Diaz and Hugh Jackman.

“It’s a shock the first time you see it. You can’t believe it’s her, right? Well, it’s her. Put the bitchy personality you know with that face and body up there, draw on a cheerleader uniform, and you’ll pretty much have a picture of what I had to face every day in high school, not to mention all the torturous Easter dinners. But life’s a wicked little bastard. I got my master’s in library science from Harvard and she got Harry and an addiction to high fructose corn syrup.”

Before I could figure out my response to that, screeching feedback from the microphone outside sliced through the room like a dying cat. I plugged my right ear with a finger, because I held the wineglass in the other hand and there was no immediate place to put it down. Letty was visible through the open door to the patio, decked out in black evening pants and a black sequined top. She was teetering on seven-inch heels gallantly struggling to support her body mass. She grabbed the podium and thumped the microphone with her finger, making things worse, which seemed to be her self-assigned role in life.

“Ladies! Please be seated so we can begin.” The pianist hustled to work on the microphone, and in a few seconds worked it down to a soft, bee-like buzz.

The women streamed expectantly to the patio, a herd of clomping, designer heels. Caroline couldn’t have planned the drama better herself. Two young Mexican women at each of the double French doors handed us programs with a fifteen-year-old glamour shot of Caroline on the front along with her date of birth and death. High-gloss paper. Raised, gold type. Caroline was only fifty-two. She seemed so much older. The matriarch. The Queen.

I sat in the first open chair I came to, on the aisle on the far side of the pool, and quickly glanced inside the program. Letty had listed me as the fourth and last speaker. Emily Page, Wife of the Police Chief. I tried to tamp down my irritation. This was printed way before she ever picked up the phone to invite me.

My only consolation: The program listed Gretchen Liesel as Primary Eulogist. Maybe she’d run over her time limit. Maybe she’d inspire something in me. I had no idea what I was going to say. I didn’t recognize the names of the other two speakers. Letty planned to sing a solo to close things out. “I’ll Fly Away.” I had a feeling it would no longer be one of my favorite gospel hymns by the time the evening shut down.

“We are here to mourn our great friend Caroline Warwick.” Letty’s voice boomed across the yard. “Let us open with a moment of silence.” The crowd bowed their heads low.

“Hey, Letty,” someone called from the back. “We hear that Caroline found out you aren’t really descended from the General.”

“That is a lie,” Letty said calmly, head still bowed. “This is not an appropriate place to talk about things like how you blew my husband at my daughter’s middle-school prom.”

“Show some respect, y’all,” urged the tall woman sitting directly in front of me. “Take your bitch fight to Twitter, where it belongs.” She turned around and whispered to me, “This is why Yankees like you think Texans are lunatics.”

“I don’t think that at all,” I murmured. I just think Clairmont women are lunatics.

The crowd was babbling, moving in their chairs like restless hyenas. All those secrets, ready to explode. Caroline’s real legacy.

Gretchen hopped up out of her chair in the front row. She nudged Letty away from the microphone, quickly adjusting it, turning it down.

“Thank you, Letty.” She stared at her pointedly. Letty hesitated. Then she tottered away from the podium, back to her chair. “Everybody sit down. Shut up.”

And they did. By the time Gretchen finished her tribute, tears and $35 mascara ran down the faces around me. Women shared tissues from their purses. Gretchen’s story about a philanthropist and dear friend who never wanted credit were hard to square with the Caroline Warwick I knew. Not a peep about her being seriously psychotic. I had to wonder whether half of these women were crying out of relief that their secrets might die with her.

Gretchen rolled on for about half an hour. After that, Letty announced that the next two speakers on the program hadn’t shown. I wish I’d known that was an option.

“Next up is Emily Page, wife of our new police chief, who will share a few thoughts about Caroline and then she will update us on the tragic case.”

Shock, a little panic, followed by full-blown anger. No way could I offer up inside information on the murder. The murderer was possibly in the house.

I wanted to squeeze Letty’s neck with my hands until her chubby head popped off. Instead, I stepped haltingly up to the podium as Letty brushed by me in a wave of thick, flowery perfume, sat down, and peered up at me expectantly, as did forty other faces.

I glanced down at my program, pretending that I was refreshing myself on notes that didn’t exist. Then I gazed deliberately at each section of the crowd. Left, right, center, silently acknowledging them, a trick I learned in my high school speech class. Take a moment to possess yourself. Make them feel like you have a relationship with each one of them. I wondered whether my eyes had passed over Caroline’s killer.

I didn’t see Misty’s face out there. Or Holly’s or Tiffany’s, for that matter. I easily spotted Lucinda in the far back corner, hiding under a black floppy hat, which only made her stand out more.

“First,” I said, “I am unable to speak about the case. I think it would be… inappropriate on several levels.” Letty made a small, regurgitating sound. “I would, however, like to share a prayer I’ve always found a comfort to me. I am Catholic, and I know many of you are Baptist, but I think it is universal. Please bow your heads.”

Everyone immediately bowed their heads. The power of the podium in the Bible Belt.

It wasn’t hard to find this one lodged in my brain.

“Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee we do cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Amen.”

“Amen,” the crowd repeated.

I sat down. Letty seemed stunned. This appeal to the Lord wasn’t the big Hollywood finish she was expecting. But she was Letty, so she recovered quickly. She picked up a portable microphone resting at her feet on the ground, cued the pianist, and proceeded to blast out “I’ll Fly Away.”

Not as awful as I thought she’d be in a full-out performance. The pitch roamed a little beyond her reach, but she was at least on key and clearly had voice training.

She made the mistake in the first chorus of thinking the crowd was with her. She began to wander the aisles like a nightclub singer, sticking the microphone in people’s confused faces for them to sing along before yanking it away a second later and yelling for everyone to clap along.

Letty’s face glowed red-hot from her vocal effort and her anger at our lackluster participation as she bobbled around in her shiny sequins and skyscraper heels. She walked unsteadily back toward the podium, singing Tammy Wynette-style about God’s celestial shore. She almost made it.

A few steps from the podium, her left heel caught on the leg of an empty chair. She flapped her arms desperately in that moment before disaster, when you can see it coming but can’t stop it.

Gravity and about 250 pounds gave way, and Letty flopped backward into the pool like a human Shamu, taking four empty chairs with her. The splash soaked mourners sitting on the periphery of the water, who immediately let out shrieks, and at least one very loud “Fuck!”

It might have been just a medium-sized disaster if, while Letty’s head bobbed above the water, one of the passing votives hadn’t caught her hair on fire.

I found myself at the side of the pool, leaping. For the half second I was suspended in mid-air, I wondered how my life had come to this. Then I hit the water-no small splash, either.

“Your hair is on fire!” I was yelling, reaching for Letty’s head, dunking it under.

Her head popped up.

“Are you trying to drown me?” she screeched.

The fire was out. The left side of her hair was singed all the way to the scalp, with a splotch of skin turning newborn baby pink. She’d been lucky. The rest of her head had been too wet to light up. But Letty had at least six months of hair recovery in front of her.

I felt a diabolical urge to dunk her again, saying, No, no, your hair is still on fire, Letty, and then again and again, letting her bob up and down, until it stopped being funny.

It turned out that the two Mexican women who handed out the programs, Juanita and Lupe, had suffered in Letty’s domestic service for the last ten years.

With Letty’s grudging permission, Juanita dug into the back of her mistress’s walk-in closet to find the smallest-sized clothing she owned, which turned out to be a lavender velour tracksuit in a size 16. It was wonderfully loose and cozy, and made me completely rethink my snotty attitude about velour.

Meanwhile, Lupe wrung out my clothes and hung them over several of the chairs outside. She then delivered a cup of hot cinnamon tea, which I sipped while Gretchen pumped up a blood pressure cuff on my arm, which she’d retrieved from her bag in the car.

After Gretchen briefly examined Letty’s scalp and recommended a temporary fix of over-the-counter cortisone cream, Letty disappeared into the back wing of the house. The last of the guests were trickling out the front door.

“I’m glad you are delivering my baby,” I said to Gretchen, moving over on the couch to make more room for her. “You seem calm in an emergency.”

“You’re the one who jumped in to save the day.”

“Instincts. Wife of a cop. Former junior lifeguard.”

“Your blood pressure is good.” Gretchen stripped off the Velcro, sounding curt. “Do you understand what the words avoid stress mean?”

It seemed rhetorical, so I didn’t answer. And while I had Gretchen’s attention, I meant to take full advantage. “Did you know that the cops are going through files that Caroline kept on all of you?”

“I thought we were done with this conversation. But yes, rumors are all over town that cops are picking our lives apart. I never saw the file room, but I had a general idea. I thought of it as a fairly harmless hobby.”

“Did you know she snooped around your house and found the Nazi uniform?”

“You don’t give up, do you? Yes, she eventually told me. That uniform left our house years ago. We donated it to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. How did you find this out anyway? Is your husband letting you read the files?”

“No,” I said, sharply. “Definitely not.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t think Caroline’s motives were all that pure. I told you in your office that someone left a package on my doorstep. It was the police report from the night I was raped in college.”

Gretchen’s face remained impassive.

“Her husband and son are still alive.” Now I was just throwing darts at the wall.

No reaction.

“You knew,” I said.

“I know that Caroline didn’t deserve to die the way she did.”

“Do you have any idea who hated her this much?”

“No.” She snapped her black medical bag shut and spoke gently. “Caroline wouldn’t taunt you about a rape. You’re the victim. Whatever her methods, she was all about helping the victim.”

“Hi, y’all.” Letty’s voice rang out cheerfully behind us, like this awful evening was just another day in the life.

She plopped beside me on the couch, the leather cushion offering up a helpless sigh. The yellow smiley faces on her flannel pajamas beamed at me. She wore a matching blue facial mask that cracked a little, like a series of mini-earthquakes, every time her mouth moved. She’d stuck a SpongeBob Band-Aid on the left side of her forehead and tucked her hair into a clear pink plastic shower cap.

“Did I hear y’all talking about that little package I left on Emily’s doorstep a while back? By the way, I’m going to want that outfit back tomorrow before noon. I think I’m close to fitting back into it.”

She patted the shower cap on her head distractedly.

“What are y’all staring at? I’m giving myself one of those Queen Helene Cholesterol Hot Oil Treatments from Walgreens. It’s an old pageant-girl trick. My hair’s under a lot of stress.”