Little Deaths(68)

A half-hour later, still lying in the warm water, still sipping on her vodka-laced coffee, she heard the bedroom door open and her mother pad down the hallway. She took a large swallow, prepared herself.

Then she heard a knock at the front door: Minnie barking, her mother’s footsteps changing direction, the door opening and the low murmur of Devlin’s voice. Heard her mother’s nightgown-flustered “I think she’s in the bathroom. I’ll just fetch her. Do come in”—as though these were guests, for Christ’s sake—her voice growing louder as she walked back toward the bathroom, and then the expected knock and a hissed “Ruthie, it’s the police.”

Ruth was silent, holding onto the sensation of power. Let her wait. Let her feel helpless and unsure. Let her feel that she had no control.

But the knock came again and the hiss was louder.

“Ruth! The police are here. They want to talk to you.”

Ruth sank down in the foam and closed her eyes.

“I’m in the bath.”

Knowing what response that would bring. Holding onto the power of that locked door.

“Well get out of the bath! Now! What are you doing lying around in a bath in the daytime when your children . . . when all of this is going on?”

Ruth leaned her head back and lifted her cup.

“And when there are men in the house waiting to speak to you!”

Ah, there was the heart of it.

She took another gulp, felt the warmth curl around her.

“Tell them they’ll have to wait. Or tell them to go away and come back later. I’m busy.”

A shocked beat and then: “I’ll tell them no such thing! Get out of that bath now! You can’t keep them waiting, they’re . . .”

“I can, and I will. This is my apartment. I didn’t invite them in. They’re here all the time, asking their questions, the same damn questions, over and over, and I can’t . . . I want to be left alone.”

And she reached up to the shelf over the bath and turned the dial on the radio and Elvis’s rich, rolling voice blasted out, blocking out her mother’s thin disgusted one.

She felt something rush through her. Realized it was strength.

She didn’t understand that they would make her pay for this later. That this was the day that everything would change again.


Ruth was in her bedroom putting the final touches to her hair when they came back. She called to her mother to show them in. Lit a cigarette and walked slowly down the hallway, trying to hold onto that earlier feeling.

She entered the living room and fear prickled under her arms, at her hairline. Devlin stood at the window, looking out, hands clasped behind him. It might be her apartment, but this was his interview.

He turned as she came in, nodded at her—“Mrs. Malone”—and then at another man on the sofa. Fat. Smiling. Sweating in his suit and tie. “This is Sergeant Mackay.”

“Officers.”

She sat gracefully, leaned forward to tap her cigarette in the ashtray. When she looked up, both men were watching her. She focused on Devlin.

“I apologize if we disturbed you earlier, Mrs. Malone. If we disturbed your morning routine. You seem to have had enough time to get ready now”—and his eyes raked over her.

She had to force herself not to cross her arms over her body, not to hide her face with her hands.

Instead, she took a breath and then exhaled a long plume of smoke toward him. One tiny, hopeless act of defiance.

“How can I help you?”

More questions, of course. They went on for hours, circling the details of that night like dogs. Maybe she hadn’t bolted the door after all. Maybe she’d mistaken some of the times she’d given them. They poked and prodded, trying to goad her, trying to make her angry. The fear built in her stomach like hunger. Then they changed tactics.

“Ruth—may I call you Ruth?” Mackay didn’t wait for an answer. “Is there anything you want to tell us? Anything on your mind?”

She stared at him. Shook her head.

“Are you sure? We have some new evidence, you see. It casts some . . . doubt on your story. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell us?”

She shook her head again. Forced herself to maintain eye contact.

Mackay’s voice was soft, persuasive. Devlin retreated to the window to watch, took out his cigarettes and let the other man talk.

“We know that sometimes accidents can happen. The kids are misbehaving, not listening. You just mean to spank them. Things get out of hand. Accidentally. It can happen to anyone.”

A new wave of fear like freezing water on the nape of her neck. But with it, a little relief.

Finally. This was it. This accusation was the thing she had been afraid of, and now that it was here, she found it in her to fight.

“You think I hurt my kids? You think I killed them?”

There was a pause and she felt them looking at each other. Then that soft voice again.

“Ruth, this thing . . . whatever happened, you can tell us. We’ve seen it all before. We know how these things can happen.”

She said nothing.

“It’ll go better for you if you tell us now. What do you say? Ruth?”


It was four days since his conversation in McGuire’s with Devlin, and Pete had to talk to Ruth again. He couldn’t think about Salcito, about Gallagher, about Devlin—without knocking up against her animal eyes, her soft mouth. He had to talk to her because he couldn’t bear not to talk to her any longer.