Twice

Eleanor Ross was a regal woman in a black silk dressing gown, her silver hair pulled back into a braided bun. She possessed an eerie calm, sitting on a plush red velvet sofa in front of a fire she must just have made. A twin lay on either side of her, each with a head on her thigh, each with blue eyes wide open staring into the flames. She had a hand on each twin’s head.

The nanny, a young girl with skin the color of caramel, weighing in at maybe a hundred pounds on a fat day, sat weeping in a chair close to the fire. It was a mournful and helpless sound, kind of weak. Ford turned to look at her, but her head was buried in her hands, a lush mane of black curls falling almost to her lap. Her shoulders trembled, her feet barely touched the floor.

“We heard nothing and saw nothing, Detective,” Eleanor said before Ford sat down on the ottoman he’d pulled in front of them.

He didn’t look at her as he pulled out his notepad. “Is that so?”

A moment of silence passed between them before Eleanor turned her gaze on him.

“Surely you don’t think my daughter could have done such a thing,” she said imperiously.

“At this point, ma’am, I’m not sure of anything.”

“Don’t just take the easy way out like you did last time. You decided right away it was Julian and never even looked for who really killed her first husband. Whoever killed him got off scot-free,” she said with a disapproving shake of her head.

“You can say that again,” he answered, thinking of the day Julian had been acquitted and the mix of emotions he’d felt. Tonight he felt like Julian had had ten years of freedom she hadn’t deserved and now someone else was dead.

She snorted at him, picking up on his sarcasm. “That jury of teachers and mechanics had better sense than you and the whole police department. They could see. Julian doesn’t have the strength to do such a thing. She doesn’t have the nerve.”

The way Eleanor said it, it sounded like an insult. He looked at her. There was a coldness in her eyes that was mirrored in the eyes of the twins on her lap. Her mouth was a hard straight line in a landscape of lined and sagging skin. Her stubborn chin was a dare to argue with her, to defy her. It occurred to Ford that this woman did not seem even remotely upset that her son-in-law had been brutally murdered, probably by her daughter just upstairs from where she sat. Seeing the three of them there like that, the knowledge of the scene above their heads, the weird aura of togetherness that seemed to surround them, he felt a cold finger of dread trace his spine.

“I’d like to take your statement now, Ms. Ross.”

“I’ll come to the station around noon with my attorney. Leave me your business card so we know where to find you.”

He gave her a look that he’d hoped would be intimidating but clearly wasn’t. They stared at each other for a moment and he saw that she was not going to budge.

“You’re not a suspect at this time, Ms. Ross.”

“The Ross family does not speak to police officers without the presence of an attorney. Remember that, children.”

“Yes, Grandma,” they each said softly. Ford’s creep-meter went off the charts. Nice family, he thought.

“Have it your way,” he said, pulling a card from his jacket pocket.

“I always do,” she said with a bitchy smile that was more a grimace and a narrowing of her eyes.

He heard raised voices from the second level. Eleanor got up and scooted the children toward a door on the far end of the sitting room. Julian’s thin and piercing voice carried down the stairs, ranting something incoherent that ended in a heartbroken wail.

“I’m taking the children to their rooms.”

Ford nodded as she disappeared, and wondered briefly who would take care of Julian. He wasn’t sure why he cared.

When Ford turned to the nanny, he saw that she’d looked up from her hands at the sound of Julian’s voice, and now sat wide-eyed, peering toward the landing of the second floor as if awaiting the approach of a demon.

“Miss?” he said, walking over to the girl. She looked at him, startled, as if she’d only just realized he was there. “You’re the nanny to Lola and Nathaniel.”

“That’s right,” she said. Her voice was oddly level for someone whose eyes looked so wide with fright, someone who’d been weeping moments before.

“Your name?”

“Geneva Stout.”

Ford scrawled her name in his notes. “Do you have identification?”

“Why? You don’t believe me?”

He looked up from his notepad and saw a flash of what might have been anger, might have been fear. “It’s routine, Ms. Stout. That’s all.” He made his voice calming.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and then rose to disappear through the same door where Eleanor had taken the children. If she was a little edgy, Ford was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. One of her bosses had just been brutally murdered, the other was ranting like a madwoman, and now she was left with the Wicked Queen as her sole employer. Who wouldn’t be out of sorts? Julian’s wails continued to waft down the stairs, raising the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. Talk about overkill.

Geneva returned and handed him a New York State driver’s license and a New York University student ID. He wrote down the numbers and handed the hard plastic cards back to her.

“Any other addresses?” he asked her. He’d noticed that she listed the Rosses’ address on each piece of identification.

“No,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “I’m a live-in nanny. I take care of Lola and Nathaniel full- time.”

“When do you go to class?”

“I manage,” she said, averting her eyes. “Part-time.”

“Family?”

She looked at him blankly like she wasn’t sure what he was asking. A little too blankly.

“Do you have any family? Where do they live?” he said slowly, looking at her full on now.

“Nope,” she said, again with that quick, certain shake of her head. “I don’t have any family.”

He was going to ask her to clarify her circumstances, but another cry rang through the apartment and Geneva closed her eyes and rubbed them hard with her fingers.

“What are they going to do to her?” she said, her voice tight with anguish.

It seemed like a strange question. Of all the possible things someone would be wondering about at a moment like this, she wanted to know what would happen to Julian.

He sat down on another ottoman that was near her chair and pulled himself next to her.

“Are you very close to the family?” he asked gently. She looked at him like he was some kind of an idiot.

“Well, yeah. I live with them. Take care of their kids. What do you think?”

Then her tough-chick mask split and she started to sob again. “I-can’t-believe this,” she said, barely able to get the words out. He put a hand on her knee and felt her body shaking.

“Okay, Ms. Stout. Take a moment. You can come tomorrow with Ms. Ross and give your statement to me when you’re calmer.”

“My-statement?” she said, looking at him in horror. “I didn’t see anything or hear anything until Julian started to scream. My bedroom is at the other end of that long hallway.” Her words came out between the sharp drawing and releasing of her breath and she pointed unsteadily toward the door she’d gone through earlier.

“Okay,” he said, writing down what she’d said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Unless you want to talk sooner. Call me anytime.” He handed her his card and she grasped it in her hand, gave a small nod. Here she looked at him with those wide dark eyes and he had found himself wondering what it was he saw churning in their depths.

Then he’d heard movement on the stairs. He and Geneva watched as the paramedics brought Julian down restrained on a stretcher. She had stopped screaming and had started to sob her husband’s name in a desperate, keening tone. When she saw Ford at the bottom of the stairs, she looked at him with a pleading in her eyes and