The Inn(34)

“Did she suffer?” he asked.

I climbed onto the bed and sat on the edge, my body like lead. I supposed Ned had learned of Marni’s end from the house itself, the voices downstairs climbing through the walls, the vents. I wiped my face, which was hot and damp with tears.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what happened. I … Clay’s told me some stuff, but I don’t think I can believe it right now.”

Neddy put the violin down and patted the top as though to tell the instrument to stay in place. He nodded and turned to leave.

“Don’t bring any more music makers into the house, please,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “I don’t want to forget what she sounded like.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT





A DAY CAME and went. I lay on Marni’s bed, facing the wall, unable to move. People tried to talk to me. At some point Susan and Angelica sat down next to me and cried together. I handled things from the pillow, my head too heavy to lift, the phone ringing sometimes with questions I couldn’t answer.

When Marni’s mother called, we talked in low voices, both our throats husky with grief. It seemed a friend of Marni’s from her high-school days had invited her to the party. Francis Whitman, known about town as Squid. There were no signs of sexual assault on Marni’s body, but her lipstick was smeared, and she’d been found without the tights she’d been wearing under her skirt in photographs sourced from the party. The cause of death was thought to be respiratory failure consistent with an overdose, but there would need to be a toxicology screen, an autopsy. Marni’s mother didn’t want me to go and see her. She had, and she said Marni looked small and cold and tired.

At midnight, hearing Clay’s lumbering footsteps on the porch, I got up and walked downstairs. Everyone was gathered in the living room. I sat on the arm of a couch near Nick, whose face was ashen with anger. As I settled in, I heard floorboards creaking outside the door of the living room. Neddy Ives must have been listening in.

Clay eased himself down into an armchair, put his hat on his lap, and ran his hands through his greasy hair. I wondered how long it had been since he’d sat down.

“It’s as you’d expect,” he said. “No one admitted to giving Marni anything or seeing her take anything. She was seen in the company of Mitchell Cline, the owner of the house, but she conversed and associated with a great number of people. I’m going to do another round of interviews in the morning. But so far I haven’t dug up anything we can use to press charges.”

“Was she high? Do we know for sure she took something?” Susan asked.

“There will be a full autopsy, but according to the tox screen, she had narcotics in her system. A lot of them.”

Nick got up and left the room. Everyone watched him go.

“Marni wouldn’t have done this.” Angelica wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. “She was a good kid. Our little baby of the house. We all looked out for her, and nobody’s seen her do anything really bad, right?” She looked around. No one met her gaze. “Yes, she got up to some mischief. But nothing like this.”

“My mother thought I was only getting up to mischief when I was a kid,” Vinny said. He seemed to fall into his memories, his eyes darkening; he turned away. His words seemed to break something in Angelica.

“What are we going to do for Christmas?” Angelica cried. “Marni loves Christmas.”

She hid her face and sobbed. It seemed to me that she felt silly for making the comment, but she shouldn’t have. We were all going to have to face the things that Marni loved but without Marni around in the coming months and years. Effie, in the darkest corner of the room, rubbed her nose on the back of her hand and shielded her eyes.

“Surely you can bring Cline in for questioning,” Susan said. “He owns two Escalades. One was spotted at the house during the drive-by.”

“He had an alibi.” Clay sighed. “All I can do is ask him to come sit for an interview and submit his vehicles for forensic testing voluntarily. Until I have more, my hands are tied.”

Silence passed over us. I cleared my throat.

“New house rules,” I said. Everyone turned to me. “No one stays here alone. I want the curtains drawn morning and night and all the cars parked at the back. We don’t want to make it obvious who’s here and who isn’t. Until this is over, we’ve got to take care of each other.”

I stood, trying to think of something to tell my people about the loss of Marni that would help them in their hour of pain and confusion. But all I could see around me were the memories that tied them to our lost girl. I remembered Vinny sitting in the morning sun telling Marni about champion boxers from New York in the fifties. Marni and Clay watching Red Sox games together, eyes locked on the screen, munching cheese balls and swearing under their breath. Marni shaking the ladder jokingly as Effie climbed up to clear leaves from the roof gutters.

“I can’t bring her back,” I told them all. “All we can do right now is try to weather the storm. This is our house. We need to be ready if he comes at us again.”

There was a ripple of something in the room, fear or sadness, maybe. I heard the truth in my own voice, and I think they did too. I beckoned Effie from the dark corner, planning to take her to Nick so we could strategize.