Deborah’s mouth opened in surprise. Phil, the former executive, was better at hiding his reaction.
“When Caroline Caswell told me the Lowes died in an accident, I assumed she meant car accident,” I continued. “I wondered for a while, Deborah, if your automobile accident was connected to their deaths.”
“It was,” she answered. “Though not in the way you’re thinking. For years I pretended that terrible night had never happened. I blocked it completely, avoided any place or person that would remind me. But when my boys were little, I don’t know. With the stress of the responsibilities of motherhood, being alone with them. Phil was traveling all the time. I started to drink. Heavily.”
“You don’t have to tell her this,” Phil said from across the room. But he didn’t go to her.
“My two little boys were in the backseat when I was thrown through the windshield. Child car seats were not as good then as they are now, but they were good enough. Neither boy was seriously hurt.” She wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Julia, I had been drinking. Alone, at home, before I went off to the nursery school to pick them up.”
She let that sink in. It wasn’t my story, yet I could barely breathe.
“After I got out of the hospital, I went straight to rehab, with my face still a horror. I had to get better, for my boys. And I did, though my younger son had nightmares for years after the accident. Thank God we’ve all left it behind us.” She turned to face me head-on. “So I’m glad for my ruined face. I’m alive. My boys are alive. My new face reminds me every day of the person I had to become. Not looking like I did then has helped me move past all that happened. Excuse me.”
Deborah went off in search of a tissue while Phil stared daggers at me. I felt terrible. The events that had rippled out from that single New Year’s Eve were staggering. So many lives profoundly changed.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Phil snarled. “I asked you to leave her alone.”
Deborah returned from the powder room holding a box of tissues. “It’s okay,” she said to Phil. “I wanted to tell Julia what happened. Why did you go to Connecticut?” she asked me.
“Because that was where the woman from the accident at Main and Main was from. I’ve believed for a while that the accident and the body in our walk-in are related.”
“And are they? What do they have to do with us?” Deborah asked.
By plan, I’d told none of the other couples what the police had discovered in Connecticut, but none had asked as directly as Deborah Bennett. I hated to inflict more pain, but she had been honest with me at great personal cost. I decided I owed an answer. “The accident victim was Enid Sparks. The murder victim was her nephew, Austin Lowe.”
The words were no sooner out of my mouth than Deborah grasped her chest, took a deep breath but didn’t exhale, and crumpled onto the hard kitchen floor.
Phil beat me around to the other side of the island. “Dammit, Julia! I begged you not to upset her!” He cradled Deborah’s head in his arms as she gasped for breath. “Get her medication from the shelf in the pantry!” He turned his attention back to his wife. “Slow, deep breaths, Deborah. Help is on the way.” I returned to Phil with her medication, a Valium prescription, and a glass of water. Since I’d had panic attacks myself, I felt awful for Deborah, and guilty about what I’d done to her. Unless she was an Oscar-worthy actress, she’d had no idea of either Enid or Austin’s identity. And, clearly, she hadn’t put the past as much in the past as she thought she had.
Phil helped Deborah to her feet, then looked at me. “Go,” he ordered.
But I had to fulfill my mission. “Okay,” I said, loud enough for both of them to hear, though I doubted I had either’s attention. “I have to go anyway. While I was in Connecticut, I visited the Lowes’ old insurance agent. He gave me the report from the fire. It’s in a manila envelope on the coffee table in a tote bag in my apartment. When Lieutenant Binder gets back into town tomorrow, I’ll give it to him.”
Phil muttered, “Go away, Julia,” but his attention was clearly on his distressed wife. I let myself out the front door.
Chapter 28
I put the Caprice in my mother’s garage and fast-walked back to the restaurant. Gus would be winding down for the day. I had just enough time to grab a late lunch and help Chris get set for the evening.