Sisters

TWENTY-NINE




Alex’s brain seemed to be seething as she drove back to Boston. She went directly to the South End and parked nearby the Colsons’ apartment. Maybe it was a coincidence, but Alex didn’t believe that. It was exactly the sort of connection she had been looking for. She knew it didn’t mean that Joy had killed Lauren. Why would she? But there was a secret between them. That was obvious. And it might have proved to be an explosive secret. Alex needed more information.

She knocked on the Colsons’ front door. Elaine answered.

‘You’re home,’ said Alex. ‘Thank goodness.’

‘It’s a Catholic feast day. The office is closed.’

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ said Alex.

‘Look, don’t blame me. I warned you about Dory,’ said Elaine wearily. ‘I wish I could say I was surprised when they showed up here with that warrant and found the knife. But honestly, I wasn’t. I’m sorry that she hurt you, but I told you she would.’

‘This isn’t about Dory,’ said Alex, amazed yet again at Elaine’s dislike for her own daughter, which seemed to be permanently frozen in place. ‘Not directly, anyway. Can I come in? I really need to talk to you.’

Elaine shrugged and stood back from the door. Alex followed her down the hall and then the steps into the great room. There was a smell of burnt sugar in the air. Elaine had obviously been working in the kitchen when Alex arrived. There were measuring cups and baking ingredients on the counter, and a fruit pie cooling on a rack by the stove. The smell of smoke was heavy in the kitchen, and the back-garden door had been opened to let it out. Elaine returned to the flour-covered counter and resumed her mixing and measuring.

‘What happened?’ Alex asked.

‘I was making a pineapple upside-down cake for Father Finnegan’s retirement dinner and it overflowed the pan. What a mess. I don’t know how that could have happened. I’ve made that recipe a million times. Anyway, I have to start all over again. I wouldn’t bother, but the dinner is tomorrow night and my pineapple upside-down cake is his favorite.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Alex. Looking around the cozy, great room, the kitchen full of wonderful smells in spite of the smoke, the pie cooling on the counter, Alex thought that it was the image of a happy home. When Dory was adopted it must have seemed to the Catholic Foundlings Agency that this was the perfect setting to raise a child. Except that Dory’s mother seemed to be unable to love her without reservation which was, in the end, more important than the cozy house and all the baked goods in the world.

‘Have a seat,’ said Elaine, pointing to a tall stool by the center island in the kitchen.

Alex sat down.

‘I don’t really know how I can help you,’ she went on. ‘I don’t know what possessed her to do it.’

‘Actually, I’m not here to talk about Dory. I’m here about something else,’ said Alex.

Elaine turned and looked at her in surprise. ‘What else could you and I have to talk about?’

‘Lauren,’ Alex said.

‘Lauren? What about Lauren?’

‘Elaine, Garth told me that Lauren was gay.’

Elaine, who was scrubbing out the burnt-on batter from the pineapple upside-down cake mold, stopped for a moment, and Alex could see her jaw working, as if she were grinding her teeth. Then she shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. That has nothing to do with you.’

Alex was not about to be put off by Elaine’s chilly reception. ‘I was just wondering how you knew that. Did Lauren tell you?’

‘Of course she told us,’ said Elaine in exasperation. ‘Did you think he was making it up?’

‘No, not at all,’ said Alex. ‘It’s just one of those things people often keep to themselves. You know, it’s difficult to say something like that to your mother, I imagine. It can come as a shock. Or did you always kind of suspect?’

Elaine shook the water droplets off the pan and began to dry it carefully with a kitchen towel. ‘No, of course not. I never would have suspected any such thing,’ she said. She looked at the door of the refrigerator. ‘You’ve seen her pictures. She was a beautiful girl. Very feminine.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘I still don’t understand it.’

‘So, if you don’t mind my asking, how did she tell you? What prompted her to tell you that?’

Elaine sighed. ‘What business is this of yours? This is a private, family matter. How dare you come in here and ask me about the most personal things in my life?’

Alex almost had to admire Elaine’s forbidding manner. She doubted that anybody ever got to Father Finnegan without the approval of Elaine. ‘Look, I’m asking because of the reopened investigation into Lauren’s murder. Dory was cleared, but until they arrest someone for that murder . . .’

‘Oh, I don’t believe you,’ said Elaine. ‘You still take her side in this? After what she did to you? Right there was proof of what the police had said all along. Dory’s jealousy is murderous.’

‘I don’t think the police ever looked any farther than Dory,’ said Alex stubbornly. ‘And I’m beginning to have my doubts. Just humor me, if you would. When did you find about Lauren’s homosexuality?’

Elaine shuddered. ‘I hate that word.’ Then she sighed. ‘When? Well, I didn’t have any hint of it while she lived at home. I guess it didn’t really come up until that business with Walker Henley. They’d been dating for a while. I was getting impatient. They were both of age. I couldn’t see what they were waiting for. I wanted to start planning the wedding. And Lauren kept stalling. The more I pressed her on it, the more she made excuses. So finally, one day we had it out. That’s when she told me. She said she was only going out with Walker Henley to keep up appearances. She said that she was a lesbian. I wanted to die . . .’

‘Was it that bad?’

‘You wait until you have children,’ said Elaine tartly.

‘Obviously it was a big shock,’ said Alex.

‘For most people, tolerance is just a political term. It’s a whole different ballgame when it’s in your own family. Hey, why are you asking me this anyway? What has this got to do with anything?’

Alex mulled over what she wanted to say. ‘I had occasion to talk to Cilla Zander today.’

‘Cilla Zander,’ Elaine exclaimed. ‘Awful woman. Well, I shouldn’t say that. She was good for Lauren’s career. I didn’t like her personally. It was her attitude.’

‘She told me she was the one who kind of pushed Walker and Lauren together,’ said Alex. ‘They were both her clients. They both needed publicity.’

‘Maybe she did. I wouldn’t know,’ said Elaine dismissively.

‘Did Lauren ever have any . . . relationships with girls around here?’

‘No. I told you that. Lauren did not have time for relationships. She was home-schooled, and she had lots of music lessons and auditions going on. She was focused on the future. On her career.’

‘But she must have been close to someone as a teenager. Some friend or someone.’

‘She didn’t need friends. She had me. We were as close as a mother and daughter could be,’ said Elaine.

‘What about the Ennis family? Chris and Joy . . .’

‘They’re our neighbors. We share a house. Of course she was close to them. When she was in high school Joy already had Therese. Lauren used to go upstairs and help her sometimes. Just for a change of scene. But I wouldn’t say they were friends.’

‘And then Lauren moved to Branson.’

Elaine sighed again. ‘Her career was taking off. She was starting to get noticed. She hired that awful woman to manage her career, and she moved out west.’

Alex nodded. ‘That must have been tough.’

‘It wasn’t easy,’ said Elaine. ‘I adjusted.’

‘You still had Dory,’ said Alex.

‘There was no getting rid of Dory,’ said Elaine with a sigh.

‘Didn’t you tell me that Joy left her family for a while?’ Alex asked.

‘I didn’t tell you that,’ Elaine contradicted her angrily.

‘It must have been Dory who told me,’ said Alex. ‘Are you saying it’s not true?’

‘Oh, it was true all right. When Therese was about seven or eight years old, Joy decided that she had to find herself. She went to some Yoga ashram out in California. She was gone for six months. It was terribly hard on Therese. And on Chris. I stepped in and tried to help out with Therese as much as possible. She couldn’t understand how her mother could just leave her like that. Well, I couldn’t either, to be honest with you. Anyway, this has been like Therese’s second home ever since.’

‘She was lucky to have you,’ said Alex. But her mind was turning over these facts and re-examining them. Joy left her family and went out west. She said she was in California, but maybe she actually went to Missouri.

‘Why are you asking about Joy? What business is it of yours if Joy went to a yoga retreat eight years ago?’

Alex looked at Elaine coolly. ‘I’m just wondering if that’s where Joy really went,’ she said.

‘Where else would she have gone?’

‘She might have gone to be with Lauren.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Elaine.

‘Is it?’ asked Alex.

‘Yes. Of course. Joy’s not a lesbian. She’s married.’

Alex nodded as she caught a glimpse of uncertainty in Elaine’s eyes. Even she knew that it was not impossible. In spite of herself, Elaine was suddenly curious. ‘Cilla Zander told me that Lauren lived briefly with a woman named Joy out in Branson,’ said Alex. ‘A dark-haired woman with dimples and a beauty mark by her lips.’

Elaine thought that over for a minute and then shook her head. ‘That’s not possible. I would have known if that were true.’

‘Why would Cilla Zander lie about it?’ Alex asked.

Elaine dusted the flour off her hands and placed them on her hips. ‘I don’t know. But you know what? I don’t appreciate this. You are speculating about the most private business of a woman you didn’t even know.’

‘I’m not just speculating,’ said Alex. ‘I’m asking myself who, besides Dory, might have been angry with Lauren. Angry enough to kill her.’

Suddenly there was the unmistakable thud of a door closing.

‘What was that?’ said Alex.

Elaine looked at her, frazzled. ‘The garden door probably blew shut. Where in the world did you get these ideas?’

‘I start from the premise that my sister might be innocent,’ said Alex.

Elaine raised her floury hands as if to say STOP. ‘I don’t want to hear another word. Take all your sick accusations and get out of my house.’

Alex got up from the stool. ‘All right. If that’s what you want.’

Elaine walked into the living area and pulled open one of the French doors to the garden, which were now shut. ‘You can go out this way. Take those steps to the street. Please don’t come back.’

Alex walked past her, crossed the patio and climbed the outside stairs to the street without looking back. Elaine didn’t want to know about Lauren and Joy, even if it was the truth. She didn’t want to think of the two of them in that way. But Alex couldn’t help thinking that this was a secret that had the potential to lead to trouble.

She just wasn’t sure how to find out if it had.

As she got into her car and began to pull out of the parking space, her phone began to ring. She stopped halfway in the parking space and frowned at the unfamiliar number. Then she answered it.

‘Alex, it’s me. It’s Dory.’ Her voice was flat.

‘What’s the matter?’ Alex said warily.

‘I’m at the Suffolk County Jail. Can you come over here?’

‘I’m not sure if I’m allowed to,’ said Alex.

‘Please, Alex, I wasn’t the one who stabbed you. I wouldn’t do that to you. I want you to know that.’

‘They did find the knife that stabbed me under your mattress,’ Alex reminded her.

‘I did not put it there,’ said Dory listlessly, like a child reciting a memorized answer, ‘because I never had it. Look, I can have visitors from three-thirty to five. Will you come? There’s some things I need to say in person.’

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ said Alex. She ended the call but she knew that it was not really over. She looked up the address for the jail on her iPhone. Nashua Street, she thought. I know where that is. She thought about it for a minute, and then pulled out of her parking space.