Locust Lane(93)

“That horrible witch woman?” Katharine asked, helpfully.

“She actually accompanied him to the station yesterday. Thank God they were able to set her straight. Seems she was the one who called the police to warn them Noone was on his way to our place.”

Oliver and Celia huddled in private after that. Plans needed to be made. They decided Jack would speak with a counselor daily; he’d only return to school when he got the green light. Oliver suggested Celia see someone as well. She told her husband not to be silly. His own psychological well-being was not discussed. Drew and Scotty would spend Tuesday night at Katharine’s, then return to their respective lives.

Celia kept a close eye on Jack for the next couple of days. He seemed perfectly fine, though the counselor warned of lurking trauma that could take weeks or months to emerge. Tuesday passed slowly; Wednesday was glacial. The police put out a statement saying Jack was not now, nor had he ever been, a suspect. Everyone was waiting for Christopher to plead guilty. Relations with Katharine continued to deteriorate, leading Celia to decide to return home by Sunday. Oliver had wanted to give it two weeks but she put her foot down. She didn’t want to wind up like the Bondurants, exiled from her own house.



* * *



When the doorbell rang, her temptation was not to answer. It was probably just the press. But it rang a second time, and she didn’t want her mother to deal with them. She crept down the hall and looked through the peephole. You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought. Although every molecule of common sense she possessed told her not to open the door, she understood that this woman would need to be dealt with.

Alice’s face was haggard and pale, tinged with sleeplessness.

“How did you know we were here?”

“Educated guess. Look, I know you hate me. But can we just talk for five minutes? I’m leaving for good and there’s something I wanted to say to you before I do.”

Celia shook her head in disgust and prepared to close the door.

“Jack didn’t do it,” Alice said.

Celia stopped herself.

“I know that now. I was wrong.”

“I wish you’d understood that before you caused so much grief.”

“Can I come in?”

Celia briefly contemplated a meeting between her mother and Alice.

“I don’t think so.”

“Just a few minutes and then you’re free of me forever.”

“There’s a Starbucks around the corner. Wait for me there.”

She waited for a decent interval before leaving the house and almost turned back once she was halfway there. But she pressed on, like she always did. Alice had found a table far from anyone else, an untouched black coffee in front of her.

“I’ve been thinking about what you did,” Celia said after she sat down. “It wasn’t pure malice. I know that. You were operating under some misplaced loyalty to Michel. And Hannah, even. But what I can’t forgive was that you were willing to hurt Jack.”

“I don’t expect forgiveness,” Alice said, the contrite tone dropped from her voice. “And my loyalty wasn’t misplaced.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Christopher didn’t kill Eden.”

“Oh for heaven’s…”

“Your husband did.”

“You really are crazy. Why was I the only one not to see it?”

“Jack called Oliver right after he left the Bondurant house and Oliver drove straight home. He went to see Eden to shut her up. Which he did.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Since then he’s been orchestrating everything.”

“Enough.”

“At first I thought he was doing it all to hide the fact that Jack snuck out of our house. But I was wrong. Jack was with us all night.”

“But that proves that Christopher is guilty!”

“No. It only proves that Jack isn’t. Oliver wasn’t protecting your son. He was protecting himself. He knew the minute the cops stopped thinking this was Christopher, once they started looking seriously at Jack, they were going to eventually figure out it was him.”

“Oliver never left the hotel. This is where you’re wrong. He called me first thing. And he spent the morning with German businessmen. Unless you think they’re in on this conspiracy.”

“He still could have done it.”

“This is preposterous.”

“And then there’s Patrick Noone. The one person who saw him there winds up getting killed.”

“Patrick Noone claimed to have seen Jack, not Oliver!”

“Think about that.”

“I’m leaving now,” Celia said as she stood. “I strongly suggest you don’t breathe a single word of this nonsense to anyone else. If you do, you’ll be dealing with Oliver, not me.”

“What’s he going to do? Bash my head in? Have the cops shoot me?”

“No, Alice. But he will destroy you.”

“I’m already destroyed.”

“Well, act like it.”

Her anger was so intense that she almost walked right past the house. She couldn’t believe this woman. She was relentlessly perverse. She’d taken the simplest of things, a parent protecting a child, and twisted it into a sick conspiracy. Because she couldn’t understand. Having no children of her own, she couldn’t begin to fathom why parents did what they did.