The Murder Rule(73)
“What about DNA? Why didn’t they ask for a test? For proof?”
“They probably would have, if it wasn’t for me. I went to Tom’s dad. Laura wrote me a script. I told him that Tom had been with a girl in Maine, that the girl had been head over heels for him, that she was a sweet, poor girl from a religious family. He was very upset. He didn’t want Tom’s girlfriend or her family or anyone else in Virginia to know about it. I told him that Laura didn’t want to cause any trouble.
She just wanted to take care of her baby.”
“Jesus.”
“It sounds bad. It is bad, I know. It’s something I’m real y not proud of. But I was young and stupid.” Hannah said nothing and after a moment Dandridge continued. “My relationship with my family was a mess. My dad knew I was using drugs. He wasn’t happy. He’d already threatened to cut me off. I didn’t want to go to him and tel him I’d gotten a girl pregnant. I was scared. I didn’t want my life to change.”
“So the Spencers paid my mother off.”
“Yes.”
“And you took a share too, right?” There was no way he’d lie like that just to take care of Laura and a baby he clearly didn’t want.
He widened his eyes and spread his hands “Not much. Real y, Hannah, not much. I wanted most of the money to be there for you, to keep you safe. Look, I know this al sounds terrible, but you have to understand. Thomas and Toni Spencer, the whole family, they are loaded. I mean loaded. The money they paid Laura they didn’t miss for a second.”
“Their son was dead. They were grieving. You knew it and you took advantage.” Jesus. This was her father. This is what she came from. And her mother. That diary. That goddamn diary. It had been a lie. Every last word of it.
Dandridge was nodding. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can’t argue with that. But I’ve been in prison for eleven years. I think, if I deserved punishment for what I did, I’ve had it and then some.”
She believed him. God help her. Maybe she was a fool . . . no, clearly she was a fool. Laura had lied to her and manipulated her for years and she’d al owed it. Why? Oh God, why? Hadn’t some part of her known that things didn’t quite add up? She’d been so young when she’d found the diary—discovering it, now that she thought about it, in a box of old papers that Laura had asked her to sort out.
Young, but old enough to know what her mother was. So why hadn’t she seen the truth? Because . . . because there’d been a busy little part of her mind that brushed away doubts, directed her attention away from inconsistencies, reassured her that Laura’s behavior—her neediness, her manipulation, her sporadic outbursts and destructiveness and selfishness—al of it was understandable and excusable, seen through the light of the diary. But only because a part of her had wanted to believe it. That was the worst of it. She, who had so prided herself on her clear-sightedness. She had been the most deluded of al .
“I didn’t kil Sarah Fitzhugh. I never knew her, never met her, never touched her. I would never hurt a woman, or any person. I’ve never even been in a bar fight. I need to know that you believe me, Hannah. I know I don’t have the right to ask a thing of you. But . . .
you’re not going to get into al this with Rob, right? I mean, it’s not relevant.” He looked genuinely worried. Maybe he thought Parekh would kick him to the curb if he knew he was a fraudster.
“I believe you,” she said. Then she laughed, a little bitterly. “But I believed my mother too. For years and years. So what do I know?”
His lips parted and he drew in a shaky breath. “Why did you come here? Did you come here to help me?” His eyes narrowed, suddenly suspicious. Hannah stood.
“I came here to see for myself who you are.” She made for the door, knocked for the guard. He came quickly.
“Are you going to help me? Are you going to talk to Rob?”
Dandridge said, raising his voice to be heard over the unlocking of the door, her quiet conversation with the guard. “Wil I see you again?”
She turned back and looked at him one last time.
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
IN THE PRISON PARKING LOT HANNAH GOT INTO SEAN’S CAR
AND set off in the direction of Charlottesvil e. She had nowhere else to go. She drove for ten minutes before pul ing over. She got out of the car, stood at the side of the road, and dialed her mother’s number. Laura answered right away, and her voice was warm, and loving.
“Hannah, baby, I—”
“You fucking lied to me, Mom.”
Laura drew in a breath in a sudden, sharp inhalation.
“You lied to me. Al of it. Al of it was bul shit.”
There were tears. Immediately, there were tears, of course. And despite her fury there was stil a part of Hannah that heard her mother gasp for breath, heard her weep, and wanted to apologize, to comfort. Hannah imagined a steel-toed boot inside her head, stomping down on that feeling and crushing it forever.
“You manipulated me,” she said. “You trained me like a goddamn dog. Every time you clicked your fingers, I jumped.”
Laura sobbed into the phone. But Hannah imagined her mother, standing in the house in Orono, holding her phone, dry eyed, sobbing violently but feeling nothing, just faking it al . It was such an ugly image and for a moment she felt doubt. Memories flooded her.