Eight Perfect Murders(57)
“Right,” I said.
After ending the call, I thought some more about Robin Callahan being the intended victim of the three bird murders. And even if there hadn’t been an obvious intended victim, there must have been someone that Charlie thought of first. He knew he wanted to emulate the A.B.C. killings, and he knew he wasn’t going to use the alphabet. If he decided that he wanted to kill Robin Callahan, then the way to cover it would be to find two more victims with names that suggested a bird. And Robin Callahan was a natural victim in the sense that she’d upset people. She advocated for adultery, and she’d wrecked at least two marriages.
In the afternoon I slept on the sofa. I dreamed I was being chased again, like I always did. Even when I was young, I would have these dreams in which I suddenly found out that my parents, my friends, my teachers were all monsters, and that I needed to run from them. In the worst dreams I found myself powerless to move, my legs heavy, my feet stuck to the earth. That afternoon, in my dream, the only person I wasn’t running from was Gwen Mulvey. She was at my side, and together we were trying to escape the murderous horde. When I woke up, I ran to the bathroom thinking I might be sick, but I wasn’t.
I dressed for dinner, tucking a blue checked shirt into a pair of dark corduroys, then putting on my favorite sweater, a cashmere roll-neck in black, the last gift I’d received from Claire, on the Christmas before she died. I stood in front of a floor-length mirror and, in my mind, I asked Claire how I looked. You look fine, she said. You always look fine. I imagined her running her fingers through my short gray hair.
What should I do? I asked her. About these murders?
It’s your mess, she said. You need to fix it.
It was something she used to say, although when she said it, she’d always be referring to herself. It was what she said after confessing to me that she’d gotten involved with drugs again. I told her I could help, and she said, Ugh, no. It’s my fucking mess and I need to fix it myself. I used to think this trait of hers—the way she owned her failings—was a good thing, but now I’m not so sure. Her life was messy, but the most important thing for her was to avoid confrontation, to not upset people, to take on all the blame herself. Hurting herself was fine, but she would go out of her way to not hurt anyone else.
It was her prime directive, the need to avoid collisions. To avoid letting other people take care of her.
It’s my fucking mess.
But she was wrong.
Chapter 24
I left the house without checking the weather and found that the snow had picked up. It was now coming down in thick clumps, sticking to trees and bushes, but melting on the sidewalks and roads.
Before heading to Brian’s house in the South End, I went to a wine shop on Charles Street and bought a bottle of petite sirah. I was halfway out the store when I turned around. I bought a bottle of Zwack, a Hungarian herbal liqueur that I liked. Then I walked to Old Devils, where Brandon and Emily would be getting ready to close up for the night. Before entering the store, I stood outside in the snow for a moment, peering through the window into the warm glow of the bookstore’s interior. Brandon was talking to a customer, and even though I couldn’t hear the specific words, I could hear the deep boom of his voice all the way out on the street. Emily was in the background moving back and forth behind the checkout desk. Friday nights and Saturdays during the day were the times when the three of us—the Old Devils Bookstore employees—were most likely to all be working, and it felt strange to be outside looking in. The world kept going, I guess.
I pushed through the door and greeted Brandon by offering him the bottle of Zwack.
“What?” he said, his voice high, dragging out the word.
“Peace offering,” I said. “I feel bad I’ve been so absent lately. You guys have been picking up the slack.”
“Yeah, we have,” he said and went back to show Emily.
I said hello to the customer, a young woman I recognized as a local mystery author who had given a reading at our store the previous year. Her name had suddenly escaped me.
“How’re things?” she said. She had large dark eyes close together in a narrow face. The fact that she parted her straight black hair in the middle made her look like someone Edward Gorey might have drawn.
“Things are fine,” I said. “What’s new with you?”
Before she could answer, Brandon had pulled Emily out from the back offices and was calling me over. “You, too, Jane,” he said. Her full name suddenly came to me: Jane Prendergast. She had written a mystery novel called The Owl Shall Stoop. We walked over to where Brandon was pouring out shots into the small water glasses we kept in the back.
“Come in to browse some books, and end up getting a shot,” I said to Jane.
“She’s part of the family,” Brandon said, and Emily, now holding her drink, flushed a deep red. Brandon looked from her to me, and said, “Oh.”
Emily said, “Jane and I are seeing each other.”
I said, “That explains why you’re always putting Jane’s books on the front table.” And now Jane looked embarrassed, too, and I apologized, and said that I was just kidding. The four of us drank. “To Old Devils,” I said.
Emily shuddered and asked me what Zwack was. I said I didn’t really know but that it seemed appropriate for the weather, like something a St. Bernard would bring you if you were trapped by an avalanche. I stayed a little longer but turned down a second drink. It was nearing seven, our closing time, and also the time that I was supposed to be in the South End. I suddenly didn’t want to go. It felt safe in the store, and I just didn’t know what was going to happen at Brian and Tess’s house. I texted Tess and told her I’d be there closer to seven thirty, and then I helped Brandon and Emily close up. Jane stuck around, waiting for Emily to get off her shift.