He smiled. “It was supposed to be this perfect September day and instead it was a huge downpour.”

  “Yeah, I remember. But I wasn’t talking about that. When I was walking down the aisle, Frank leaned over and whispered something to you. I’ve always wondered what he said, but I never asked him. I was worried he was getting cold feet.”

  “He wasn’t.” Neal took my hand. “He said, ‘I’m not good enough for her.’ And I said, ‘As long as she never finds that out, you’re fine.’ ”

  He laughed at the memory. But I cried. After weeks of not being able to push the tears out from behind my eyes, I was now unable to stop. Neal and I sat in the parking lot for more than an hour with my head on his shoulder, both of us crying for what had been irrecoverably lost.

  Sixty-five

  “You said you played basketball with him on the day he died.”

  Neal and I had finally composed ourselves enough to move from the parking lot to his car, where we listened to a CD and talked about better days. Evening was turning into night, but I didn’t want to leave until I knew everything he could tell me.

  “We played basketball. Over there.” He pointed to a corner of the parking lot that served as a basketball court when the spaces weren’t needed for the cars of churchgoers.

  “What was his mood?”

  He shrugged. “He was Frank. He was upbeat and happy.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Basketball.”

  “Other than basketball.”

  “Nothing. It wasn’t a therapy session, Kate. It was just two middleaged guys reliving their glory days and getting ready for a reunion of the team.”

  “It sounds fun.”

  “It was fun.” He laughed. “But man, were we out of shape. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and Frank drank a two-liter pitcher of iced tea and he was still dehydrated.”

  “Do you know where he went after the game?”

  “He went to his mom’s house. She’d called him about some problem he needed to rush over and fix. Knowing Lynette, she probably broke a nail.”

  We laughed and started on a roll of Lynette stories, each crazier than the last. It felt good to laugh and not worry, at least for a while, about any of the darker aspects of the whole experience. Sitting with him now, I realized it was crazy to think he had ever hurt Frank. He had loved him nearly as much as I did.

  After a while, I got out of Neal’s passenger seat. Rather than just saying good-bye and driving off, he walked me the three feet to my car. We hugged, and for a long time we wouldn’t let each other go. But I had one more question.

  “I want the truth, Neal. Was Frank really coming home?”

  He paused. “I don’t know,” he said, almost in a whisper. “He talked about it. He didn’t know if you would take him back. He talked about that a lot. But he also talked about Vera. I think he loved you both.”

  “So when you said he thought his engagement to Vera was a mistake . . .”

  “He said it was. He said they were moving too fast.”

  “Had he told her that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you don’t know if he was ending it or just slowing things down?”

  “To tell you the truth, Kate, I’d say on the day he died, it could have gone either way.”

  I kissed Neal on the cheek and got into my car. I was supposed to go back to Ellen’s but I just wanted to go home. If there was some crazed killer waiting for me, so be it. I wanted to sleep in my own bed.

  Sixty-six

  Unfortunately the person waiting for me at my house wasn’t a crazed killer. I wasn’t that lucky.

  “Hi, Lynette,” I said as I got out of my car.

  She and Alex were standing on my front step.

  “We called you and you didn’t answer, so we came over,” Lynette said. Then she looked me over. “Is everything all right? You look like you’ve been dragged through an alley.”

  Instinctively, I wiped my face. The streaks from crying were, I was sure, still visible but there was nothing that could be done about that at the moment.

  “Come inside,” I said. Then I held my breath, prayed that there were no surprises waiting for me, and opened the door.

  “Look at all the photos,” Lynette said.

  “Where?”

  Then I realized she was walking over to the pile of photos that Andres had made.

  “I’ve been organizing them,” I said. “I’ll get you something to drink. Sit down.”

  I walked through the rest of the rooms to make sure they were empty, which they were, then I went into the bathroom and washed my face. I put on a little concealer and some lipstick to make myself look less horrible but gave up when it only seemed to make me even more hollow and pale.

  I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow. I took a breath and turned.

  “Alex! You really shouldn’t sneak up behind me.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. I just wanted to let you know that the insurance check is being released. You should have it in a week or so.”

  “I thought it was being held up pending cause of death. Did the coroner change it from undetermined to something else?” That something else could, I knew, only be accident, suicide, or homicide. Since there was a large amount of digitalis found in Frank’s system he could not have died of natural causes.

  “I don’t think so. I was told that your Detective Podeski notified the company that you were not a suspect in your husband’s death, so they released the check.”

  “I feel a little weird about taking it, though.”

  He walked toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You are my daughter, Kate. I’m going to take care of you. It’s what Frank would have wanted. It’s what I want.”

  And, for the third time that day, I burst into tears.

  “What’s going on in here? What have you done to that girl?” Lynette had entered the kitchen.

  “Nothing, Lynette,” I said. “I’m just doing this a lot.”

  “Of course you are, dear. And I haven’t helped.” She glanced toward her husband. “Alex and I came here to sit down with you and find out why you think that woman isn’t responsible for Frank’s death. And then we’ll figure out where we go from there.” She pushed me toward the living room. “Now go sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea. Just tell me where you keep it.”

  I walked over to the cabinet and opened it, showing her the dozen or so varieties I had.

  “Honestly, Kate, why do you need all these teas? All you need is one good brand of coffee and one good brand of tea. Why do you overcomplicate things?”

  “Most of them are Frank’s.”

  She blushed. For the first time I had actually won an argument. An argument so small that no one but me would have noticed. But I did notice and it was all that mattered.

  “Here,” I said, pulling down a bright blue tin. “I had this yesterday. It was good.”

  “I don’t want that. It’s one of those teas that’s full of a lot of silly flowers,” Lynette said.

  “It’s not.” I turned the tin around until I saw the list of ingredients. It was a blend of different herbs and leaves—among them comfrey. The tin showed that it had been produced and packaged by a small specialty tea shop just blocks from the house. I searched the cabinet next to the sink. I’d known it was missing since the day Podeski and I had gone through the house. The two-liter pitcher. On that last day when he’d stopped by, Frank must have used it to make himself iced tea.

  I reached the store just as it was closing.

  “Did you sell this?” I said to the woman who was trying to close up.

  She took one look and turned white. It was all the proof I needed.

  “We used to. We don’t anymore. Did you drink that? Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “It’s not comfrey in there, is it?”

  She buried her face in her hands. “No. It’s a very dangerous plant. A foxglove. But you must know that if you’re asking. It can cause illness and some heart issues if taken internally.”

  “I know.”

  “There was an inexperienced person that worked with me. It was a really popular tea in our shop for a while. And then about six months ago, we were running out of comfrey and she picked some leaves from a plant that grew in her mother’s backyard. She thought it was the same. She even showed me the leaves. Without the flowers to compare, they look really similar.”

  “So without knowing what it was, you put it in a tin and sold it as comfrey just to make a few bucks? You couldn’t have just been sold out and waited for a source you could trust?”

  She looked defeated and even trembled a little. “We sold maybe five tins of that batch before we realized the problem. We got all but one back. We sent out e-mails to everyone on our mailing list. I guess that’s the one we missed.”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s only really dangerous, I mean really dangerous, if you drink a ton of it. We say on the tin that you should only have one or two cups a day. Some of the herbs have great healing properties if used in moderation but they can cause some issues if you use a lot at one time.” Now she was talking fast and getting defensive. “We’re very clear about that on the label.”

  I opened the tin and revealed the three tea bags that were left of the original thirty. “Do you know what happens if a thirty-seven-year-old man drinks a two-liter pitcher of iced tea made with this? I’ll tell you what happens. He dies.”

  “Oh, my God” was all she got out.

  I walked a few steps away from her to a bench by a waterfall that took up one wall of the small store. I grabbed my cell phone, dialed, and waited for the answer.

  “Detective Podeski, I know how Frank died.”

  When he arrived he was alone. He walked into the store and took one look at the terror-stricken shop owner who was watching me from behind the counter.

  “We’re closed,” she said.

  “That’s an understatement.” He walked over to me and sat beside me on the bench. “I’m so sorry, Kate.”

  I leaned into his brown polyester suit jacket, and he put his arm around me.

  “I thought it was his fault, somehow,” I said. “If Vera had killed him, if he had died of a heart attack because he wasn’t taking care of himself. Or he’d taken some drug or some pill he shouldn’t have. I thought he had done it to himself.”

  “He didn’t do anything wrong,” Podeski said quietly. “Neither of you did.”

  I’d called Alex and Lynette after I’d phoned Podeski. I’d scared the hell out of both of them by running out of the house with the tea, so I explained what I’d found out. They walked into the shop as I sat and stared into space.

  Alex talked of lawsuits and Lynette screamed. Podeski called to get warrants and told the woman a criminal investigation would now take place. I just left. I had asked myself once if knowing how Frank had died would really make a difference. And now I knew. It did. Whatever adrenaline had kept me going for the last three weeks was gone. I was too exhausted even to cry.

  Sixty-seven

  The next morning came too soon. I dragged myself from bed, made a pathetic attempt to ready myself for the day, and met Andres and Victor outside my house. It was a dreary, gray day and we were promised thunderstorms. At least Mother Nature knew how I was feeling.

  And I knew Andres did too. I’d called him the night before to explain what I’d found out and to tell him to pick me up at my house rather than my sister’s. I’d also told him I wouldn’t be able to get through the last day of shooting if we talked about it. Andres said there wouldn’t be a word about it, and I knew that if he said it, it would be true. There were, as Gray had said, some people in the world who are who they say they are, and Andres was one of them.

  Work had always been my distraction but I wasn’t looking forward to being a witness to more grief. I told myself to remember that this wasn’t personal, that I didn’t care, and that these people were just a collection of sound bites to be used for entertainment. I just wasn’t sure I believed it anymore.

  First up was Jason. The restaurant I’d rented for the day had let us in an hour before he was scheduled to arrive, and we set up the camera and lights. I got the guys breakfast and went through my notes. Jason was supposed to arrive at eleven, but when he hadn’t shown up at eleven forty-five, I assumed he wasn’t coming. I dialed his number but only got voice mail.

  At twelve thirty, Andres and I started talking about Linda’s interview, scheduled for one o’clock. As we talked, Jason walked into the restaurant. He seemed almost as tired as I was, so I got coffee for us and we sat in a corner while Andres and Victor hung back and pretended to be setting up. I could tell that Jason needed a few minutes before he was in front of the camera to relax and prepare himself. I didn’t want to waste time with a useless interview and I was beginning to think that was what it would be. Jason was distracted, unfocused, and fidgeting with something in the pocket of his windbreaker.

  “Have you been to her grave?” I asked.

  “No. I figured I’d wait until things quieted down. I don’t really want to run into her family.”

  “It’s a shame that all of this hasn’t brought you closer to them. You’re all suffering the same loss.”

  Even through the pockets of his windbreaker I could see he was clenching his fist. “They didn’t understand what I’d lost.”

  Andres looked over at me. “We’re ready.”

  I got up. “Do you need a few more minutes?”

  He shook his head and got up from the chair. As he did he took something out of his pocket. He saw me notice.

  “My good-luck charm,” he said.

  “Can I see it?” It didn’t look like the saint’s medal he’d held at the earlier interview and, just to be sure, I wanted to see it up close. He was hesitant to let it go, but I smiled at him. “I need to get a good-luck charm. Something that will keep me safe when I’m nervous.”

  “You get nervous? You seem like you’re always in control.”

  “I need help too. Everyone does. I just haven’t found myself the right charm.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I thought you were just using me, but you’ve turned out to be the one person I could trust.”

  I held out my hand and he placed the object in it. A sadness I hadn’t expected washed over me when I looked at the tiny silver jewelry. It was a nurse’s cap. “This was Theresa’s.”

  He glanced at the charm. “Yeah. It’s something she gave me.”

  I shook my head. “It was a charm her mother had given her for graduation. Why would she give that to you?”

  “She left it at my apartment.”

  “No, Jason,” I said quietly. “You said she’d never been at your apartment.”

  He tried to be casual, but I could see red blotches begin to appear on his neck and face. He was nervous. And when he spoke, he stammered. “Then it must have been somewhere else.”

  “She only had it a few weeks before she died. She broke up with you before that.”

  I started to walk away but Jason grabbed me, pulling me to him so that he was behind me with his arm wrapped around my waist.

  “You of all people should understand what it feels like when the person you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with gets stolen from you.”

  I struggled but couldn’t get away. Andres and Victor started to run toward us but stopped suddenly. As I turned my head to the right, I could see what had stopped them. Jason had a gun. It hadn’t been a fist he’d been making earlier. He’d been wrapping his hand around the gun in his pocket.

  “Come on, Jason,” I said. “I was really on your side. I was going to make you look innocent. You were the one person in a really long time I actually believed.”

  “That’s because we’re the same.”

  I looked at Andres and made the eye gesture I’d made a thousand times before. He moved his head slightly back and forth. He was saying no. I squelched the urge to remind him that I was the boss on this crew and made the eye gesture a second time. Andres backed up, moving toward the camera.

  “What are you doing?” Jason screamed.

  “The camera’s been on,” Andres said. “I’m turning it off. I assume you wouldn’t want this on television.”

  “Whatever. Just don’t come closer.”

  Andres looked toward me one more time, then pressed the “on” button on the camera and walked a few steps away. For once I wasn’t thinking of a great shot. I was thinking that if Andres, Victor, and I died in this room I wanted to provide the police with irrefutable proof of our killer’s identity.

  Then I took a deep breath and tried to pretend this was an interview. “You killed Theresa by accident. You loved her and you didn’t want to hurt her. Is that what happened? Because I think everyone would understand that.”

  “They hate me.”

  “No. They just don’t know how much you loved each other and how much it hurt to lose her. But I do, Jason. I loved my husband very much.” My voice was shaking and I could feel myself starting to cry but this was not the time. I tried to focus. “If you kill me it won’t be an accident. It will be on purpose. And that would make you a murderer. And you’re not, Jason. You’re a nice guy who loved someone and got hurt.”

  I could feel his grip tighten.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  I felt him raise the gun and I closed my eyes in preparation, wondering how long it would take for the bullet to hit, and how long after my death it would be before Mike tried to air the tape.

  But Jason let go. I was almost too shocked to run, but Victor yelled at me and brought me to my senses. I ran to Andres, who pushed me behind him. I thought it was over but it wasn’t.

  “Don’t do that, man,” I heard Victor say. “Over a chick? That’s such a waste.”

  I looked out from behind Andres and saw that Jason had put the gun against his own temple. “I can’t live without her,” he said.

  “Yes, you can.” We all turned to see Linda. She was carrying a big metal catering tray. She walked into the room, put the tray on a table, and headed for Jason.

 

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