“How could I? If I had, he’d have arrested Vanessa, too. She’d never have forgiven me if I’d done anything like that.”
He was a compromised man, beholden to both his children and the wife his children despised. Either way he moved, he was going to make somebody unhappy. There was a plea in his voice when he said, “And now I’m worried about Nicole. I don’t want her to turn out the way Van did.”
As Marsha led me through the house and to the front door, she spoke softly. “I sure hope you can help him.” She looked around. I knew what she was going to say. “His new wife won’t, that’s for sure.” Now she put her mouth close to my ear. “I’m pretty sure she’s happy that Vanessa’s dead. Now all she’ll have to worry about is Nicole.”
I wasn’t paying attention when I made my way to my car. I was sorting through some of the things I’d heard inside. When I focused on where I was going, I was surprised to see Nicole sitting in my front seat on the passenger side.
I got in and closed the door.
It was always said that Vanessa was the beauty and Nicole the brain. Nice and tidy, but not true. Nicole was a nice-looking seventeen-year-old whose problem was acne. I went through a year of bad acne myself so I still had nightmares occasionally of waking up and feeling my face only to find that it was once again corrugated. She was kin to Sarah Powers, Neil Cameron’s sister. Their high school years had to have been hell.
Today she wore a white blouse and blue walking shorts. She held a can of Coke in one hand and a burning Winston in the other. “She’s watching us.”
“Who?”
“The bitch. Eve.”
“How do you know?”
“See that window to the right of the east dormer?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch the curtain. It’ll move.”
I watched. She was right.
“Why would she watch?”
“She always watches. Van and I always joked she was a spy.” She made a face suddenly, leaned forward in the seat.
“Are you all right, Nicole?”
Her fingers touched her sweaty forehead. “It’s just everything that’s happening, I guess.” She took a deep breath. “What were we talking about?”
“You don’t get along with Eve?”
“You met my real mother.”
“Yes, many times. She was a very good woman.”
“Well, compare her to Eve and see why we hated her so much.”
I didn’t say anything.
A cruel smile. “I was listening to you on the veranda. The bitch even cut into you, too. She should’ve died instead of Van.”
“Your father’s in love with her.”
“I know. That’s what’s so sickening. We met two or three of his lady friends, you know, after Mom died. They were all nice women. We would have been happy if he’d married one of them, but then Eve came along.”
“How did they meet?”
“Some party in Iowa City. She was going out with this art teacher there. She dumped him right away, of course. Dad has a lot more money.”
The way her fingers touched her ravaged face I could tell she’d become aware of me watching her carefully. But she’d misinterpreted why I was watching her. Beneath the scarring was an innocent, appealing face that made it seem impossible that she could be capable of so much anger.
“We used to plot how to get rid of her.”
“Anything ever come of it?”
She smiled for the first time. “We were chicken.” Then: “God, poor Van. I try not to think about it but it doesn’t work. I barely slept last night.” She picked up the cigarette she’d put in the ashtray. “I’d never say this to my father but I even feel sorry for Neil.”
“You got to know him?”
“Sure. Dad liked him and Marsha liked him and I liked him. Eve didn’t. She’s such a snotty bitch. She always told Van she shouldn’t go out with ‘lower-class boys.’ Van used to laugh about that. It’s not like we’re living in New York or anything. There are rich people here but it’s not like there’s this big deal when it comes to dating. Everybody goes to public school and goes out with everybody else.” She put her knees up against the dashboard and slumped in the seat and tapped out another cigarette for herself.
I disagreed with her about the town not having a class system but I doubted that people talked about it as crudely as Eve had put it.
“And Van thought she was seeing somebody on the side.” She lit her cigarette, inhaled, exhaled.
“That’s a pretty heavy accusation. What made Van think so?”
“She said one time when Dad was out of town she caught Eve and the handyman looking guilty when they were coming out of that cabana by the pool. She said Eve hurried over to her and was real friendly. Eve’s never real friendly.”
“Who’s the handyman?”
“You know a guy named Bobby Randall?”
Bobby Randall-handyman. I’d forgotten that. He was an excellent carpenter as well. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, he’s real good-looking and he knows it. Van-” She glanced out the window before speaking. “Van was into drugs. Heavy stuff sometimes. I stick to pot. Anyway, Van got her drugs from Bobby. He was always trying to get her into bed. She led him on-she did that a lot. People said she slept around and I guess that was true. But a lot of it was just kind of leading them on. Playing with them. She did it to hurt our dad. You know, because of that bitch Eve. I would’ve done the same thing probably if I didn’t have-” She flipped her cigarette out the window and brought her knees down from the dashboard. “You know, my problems.” The fingers of her left hand went-unconsciously?-to her cheek.
She opened the door. “The curtains just moved again up in Eve’s room.”
I said, “You’ve done a good job of convincing me not to like her. I didn’t take to her right off but you clinched the deal.”
She offered a slender hand and a smile. “Good. Then we’re friends.”
As we shook, I said, “We sure are.”
Then, softly, she said: “Why couldn’t it have been Eve instead of Van?”
She pushed herself out of the car with her foot and jogged back to the mansion.
9
“W ould you like half my sandwich, Mr. C? It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”
“I’m not really hungry, Jamie. Why don’t you eat what you want and then stick the rest in the little refrigerator down the hall and take it home tonight.”
“Turk doesn’t like leftover stuff.”
Well, since you’re supporting the family while Turk is loafing, he should be grateful for any food he gets. If I didn’t care for Jamie as much as I did, I would have erupted like that five times a day, every time she unwittingly revealed how Turk took advantage of her. They’d broken up a few years ago because he’d had another girlfriend on the side. The marriage had been called off. But gradually she’d weakened under all his promises to be the man-or punk, in my estimation-he knew he could be. Her parents couldn’t pay for the small, informal wedding so I made a present of picking up the tab. I also got her on a decent low-cost insurance plan because I knew she’d be pregnant soon enough. She’d confided to me through tears-this when she’d discovered Turk’s girlfriend-that Turk didn’t care
