Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(68)

I think I get it. He doesn’t want there to be evidence he bought the phones. In case they are recovered later at … what? The scene of a shooting? Another house fire? He doesn’t ask. I don’t tell.

“Nice purse,” he says finally when we emerge from the store and I start transferring over my supplies.

“I need cash,” I say. “And a new ATM card.”

He drives me to the bank.

There, things get more interesting. I walk in, and the first teller across from me, some woman I’ve never met, immediately gasps. I actually stop and glance behind me, wondering what the fuss is about. Did someone famous walk in behind me? Nope. Next, I look down. Are my clothes covered in lunch? No. Then, finally I get it. She’s gasping at me. A woman whose picture has been all over the news as a murderer.

I feel a lot better about my decision to buy hair dye. I only wish I’d bought more.

I square my shoulders, produce my passport, and get to work.

I know my accounts. I know what Conrad and I have and don’t have in our joint savings. I’m not sure if the police can freeze the funds as part of their investigation—sounds like a logical enough thing for them to do—so I make a large withdrawal now. The woman fusses, says she needs her manager. I play it cool, officially having an out-of-body experience where I’m no longer a shy mathematician’s daughter whose been shunning the limelight for her entire life but a regular La Femme Nikita. Yeah, that was me on the news. And if I was willing to shoot my own husband, just think of what I might do to you.

Then I wise up enough to turn sideways and show off my rounded belly. By the time the manager returns, I have the full pregnancy profile going on. She softens almost immediately. At least my future stretch marks will have come in handy.

She tries to tell me there’s a limit on what I can withdraw. Which is partly true, but not the paltry amount she’s conceding to me. I keep my voice firm and polite as I walk her through it. This account is in my name. My passport verifies my identity. I am entitled to withdraw what I want to withdraw. Any questions, my lawyer is sitting in the car.

In the end, the manager counts out five thousand dollars. Stacks of hundreds. I find myself thinking of the metal box again, Conrad’s own stash of IDs and cash. It both confuses and saddens me. What was he really doing on all those business trips?

And why marry me? Why acquire a wife, then a child, if his whole life was just a lie?

As long as I’m in the bank, I order a new debit card to be sent to my mother’s address. That customer service person is equally skittish to be around me. I keep my chin up, but on my lap my hands start to shake. I’m an introvert. This level of attention is difficult for me. Especially the way people look, whisper.

Forget Conrad. I feel like a sixteen-year-old girl who just shot and killed her father all over again.

I get my money. I get promises of a new card. Then I clutch my bag to my shoulder and flee the premises.

—

THE MOMENT MR. Delaney turns down my mother’s street, reporters rush forward. He is patient and firm. One slow, steady speed. The reporters quickly start giving way because he will not. It occurs to me that he’s probably driven this gauntlet before, both given his line of work and given what happened sixteen years ago.

Did I come out of the house back then? I don’t remember. I was so lost in my own grief. While I’m sure the media was terrible to my mother, asking for the gory details again and again, I’m also sure she got to vamp up her role of heartbroken widow. While I, the strange quiet kid, was let off the hook as a minor.

What did I do after my father’s death? Sat in my room and stared at a wall, trying not to see his shattered chest. Sat in his office and stared at his whiteboard, trying to capture his last bit of genius. Then one day my mother said I was going to school, so I did. Because that’s how it works in my family. We don’t talk. We don’t resolve. We just … move on.

Mr. Delaney turns into the driveway. Once we’re on private ground, the reporters have to give up. I notice signs staked in the lawn: No Trespassing. Probably Mr. Delaney’s handiwork from when he first arrived this morning. It makes an interesting counterpart to all the neighborhood Christmas decorations.

Mr. Delaney parks the car and looks at me.

“I’ll be okay,” I tell him.

“Two vodkas are okay,” he says. “Five are too many.” He’s referring to my mother, who probably is a functioning alcoholic. Take away her vodka and she’s unworkable. Too much vodka and she’s overly dramatic.

Conrad rarely drank, only the occasional beer. I realize now that’s one of the things I liked about him. Growing up in a household where alcohol felt like a necessary evil, I barely touched it myself, and was happy my husband didn’t either.

“Will you tell her about the lockbox discovery?” Mr. Delaney asks me.

“No. She already hates him enough.”

“Do you know why?”

“A window salesman isn’t worthy of Earl Hopkins’s daughter.”

Mr. Delaney smiles. “I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Then why?”

“You should ask her yourself.”

My turn to give him a look. But I’d told him I’d be okay and I can’t make a liar out of myself now, so I pop open the door and step resolutely out of the car. Across the street, the reporters shout questions, hoping to get lucky. In front of me, my mother appears in the side door, vodka martini already in hand, though it’s only three in the afternoon.