“Ever have any problems with her?”
“Problems? You mean did we argue or fight about stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there were a few times. She liked everything neat and tidy and I’m not a neat and tidy person. I mean I try not to be a slob, but I just don’t care about picking up after myself, you know? Life’s too short to worry about the little things.”
“Did she ever become violent?”
Kepler blinked at him as if he’d asked her a question in a foreign language she didn’t understand.
Runyon said, “I’ve been told that Francine has a violent temper, a tendency to lose control when she’s angry. Did she ever attack you, try to hurt you?”
“Well…” The plump face colored slightly. Kepler’s voice was rueful when she said, “Well, there was one time, right before she moved out. She got all dressed up to go out on a date with the guy she married, Kevin I think his name was, and the outfit she had on… well, the colors, you know, they just didn’t go with her blond hair. I shouldn’t’ve said anything, but I did and she got real mad, I mean real mad, and started yelling four-letter words at me. I tried to tell her I was sorry, but she wouldn’t listen, just started after me like, you know, like she wanted to break my neck or something. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She pounded on it a few times and I guess after that she calmed down and went out. Well, I was so shook up I stayed in the bathroom for a good half hour, until I was sure she was gone.”
“What happened when you saw her again?”
“Well, she acted like nothing had happened. I told her she’d scared me pretty bad and she said, ‘Well, don’t ever criticize my clothes again,’ and I said I wouldn’t and that was the end of it.”
“And that was the only incident?” Runyon asked.
“The only one. Francine was real sweet most of the time, you know?”
Charlene Kepler, out.
Now he had nothing to tell Bryn.
10
BRYN DARBY
She stood looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, fingering the vial of Xanax and wondering how many of the little white pills it would take to put her out of her misery.
A dozen or so would probably do it. This was a new prescription, the vial almost full-more than enough. Wash them down with a couple of glasses of wine, throw in four or five Vicodin to make sure, and when she started feeling the effects lie down in bed with the lights on to wait for the dark. Easy, painless. Just go to sleep and no more hurt or fear or black depression, no more looking at what she was looking at right now.
The face in the mirror was like one of those split theatrical masks, only hers wasn’t half tragedy and half comedy; it was half living and half dead. That was how she thought of the left side, not as paralyzed or frozen, the euphemisms used by the doctors and everybody else, but as dead. Part of her already dead. Pale waxy flesh, the corner of the mouth puckered so that she couldn’t open it all the way, couldn’t eat or drink in a normal fashion, dribbled and drooled like a baby. Puckered lines around the eye, too, and the optic nerve damaged so that she had cloudy vision out of it. The muscles and nerves already atrophying, no way to stop it, no chance of recovery. Most of the time she had no feeling on that side, but sometimes, and now was one of them, there was a faint burning sensation as if she were standing too close to a stove or heater. Her doctor claimed that this was psychosomatic, a phantom sensation, because of the extent of the nerve damage. Dead tissue has no feeling. Death has no feeling. Except that it did. The dead side of her face burned.
How many times had she stood here like this, thinking these same thoughts? More than she could count after the stroke and before she met Jake. Only a couple since he’d come into her life, the one good thing that had made living bearable the past few months. Somebody she could lean on, take strength from; somebody to drive away the loneliness and despair for short periods; somebody she cared about beside Bobby, at a time when she believed she would never care about anyone else again. If it hadn’t been for Jake and Bobby, she would have mixed the Xanax and Vicodin and wine cocktail by now. And the rest of her would be as dead as the left side of her face.
The depression was bad tonight, as bleak and overpowering as it had ever been. Worrying about that bitch Francine hurting Bobby again, really hurting him, putting him in the hospital, putting him in a coffin… it was maddening because there was nothing Bryn could do short of giving in to her impulses and destroying the woman. Running away with Bobby to some place where he’d be safe wasn’t an option. She didn’t have enough money to travel very far or hide for very long; wherever she and Bobby went, Robert had the money and the resources to find them. And then he’d make sure she never saw her son again.
Jake was doing everything he could-he’d already found out that Francine had a probable history of abuse with her two sisters-but it wasn’t enough. The sister in Berkeley had mental problems and wouldn’t talk about the abuse; the sister in Ojai wouldn’t, either. How could they expose Francine for what she was before she hurt Bobby so badly that his father could no longer deny the truth? All Robert could or wanted to see now was that falsely sweet young face.
Still, Jake was the only hope she had. Keep the faith in him, pray for Bobby’s safety… otherwise, the despair would consume her. And then she really would mix and swallow that last cocktail.
Bryn put the Xanax back into the medicine cabinet, turned away from the mirror. Her hands and face were sweaty; she dried them on a towel, then retied the scarf over the dead half. Even when she was alone in the house, she’d taken to hiding it behind cloth. Out of sight, out of mind-that was the idea, anyway, even if it didn’t always work.
In the kitchen she poured another glass of wine. How many did this make today? She’d lost count. But it would have to be the last. She had to walk a fine line with alcohol. Just enough took the edge off her anxiety, allowed her to continue functioning; too much made the depression worse.
She lifted the glass, then set it down again. She really didn’t need another drink-she’d had too much already. The last glass was what had led her into the bathroom, to remove the scarf and stand there wallowing in her misery. Already there was a dull ache in her temples and her mouth was dry and sour tasting; any more alcohol and she’d suffer for it in the morning.
She took a small funnel out of the utility drawer, poured the wine back into the bottle, and returned the bottle to the fridge. The house held an empty kind of silence, broken only by an occasional settling creak and the humming and rattling of the wind outside. She’d had a CD of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance playing earlier, spritely music in an effort to ward off the demons, but it had run through and stopped. She thought about starting it again, decided she was no longer in the mood for comic opera. Another CD? Something on television? They didn’t appeal, either.
What she really wanted was to talk to Bobby, make sure he was all right. But she’d called last night and Robert had grudgingly let her talk to him and he seemed okay then, if still quiet and distant. She couldn’t keep calling every night. Robert would refuse to put the boy on, harrangue her about bothering him at home, and then hang up; he’d done that before. And if she called and he wasn’t home and Francine answered, the bitch would hang up right away. That had happened before, too.
Would Robert let her know immediately if anything serious happened to Bobby? He might, and he might not. She might not know about it for hours, even days…
“Stop,” she said aloud. “Stop, stop.”
She went down the hall into her office, booted up her Mac, and opened the Hardiman file. Her current project-designing an extensive new Web site for Hardiman Industries. It was half-finished, the graphics satisfactory so far, but she hadn’t been able to work steadily on it for days. The deadline was looming; she’d have to get back to it soon or risk losing the commission. Now? Not now. Her thoughts were muzzy and the color images blurred as she stared at the screen. Tomorrow morning…
And the rest of tonight?
It was too early for bed. Maybe she could do a little more work on one of the three unfinished watercolor
