An ambush of widows, p.23
An Ambush of Widows, page 23
“Maybe he’s hurt,” Zach said. He looked at Steve Fortunato, not at Kirsten.
“I called the hospitals,” JJ said. “Kids, please, think. Has he said anything unusual, anything that might help us make sense of this?”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Kirsten said, feeling that someone had to say it, hoping they wouldn’t.
“They won’t do anything for forty-eight hours,” Fortunato said. “And, well, we’d like to find him on our own.”
Of course he didn’t want the police involved. Find Larry, maybe find the money. Was the money even still in the attic? She had thought last night, as she lay burrowed under her blanket, that they should have dumped the money with Larry—it would appear he’d taken off with it—but if the Fortunatos got their cash back, maybe they’d leave her little foster family alone.
JJ patted her shoulder reassuringly.
And Kirsten realized that she and Zach weren’t suspects. At all. At least not so far and not to JJ or Fortunato. The possibility that Kirsten had accidentally killed Larry and Zach had disposed of the body did not occur at all to the grown-ups. They were kids; they wouldn’t have been capable of such a thing. Kirsten thought a large neon sign might as well be on her forehead flashing “Killer,” but she just looked like the boring, studious girl she had always seen herself as. She tried to be normal. Or to act as the innocent Kirsten would act.
People brought food. Football parents and Fortunato people started to call the friends and relatives on the long list. JJ wrote an impassioned Faceplace plea. Finally the police got involved, when Larry’s aunt in Slidell started demanding to know why they hadn’t been called yet.
Larry’s car was found near the airport. The missing suitcase wasn’t in the trunk (it was with him in Bayou Sauvage, Kirsten suspected, but she did not ask). Kirsten and Zach stood behind JJ in the front yard with the news stations filming as JJ tearfully pleaded for Larry to come home, or if someone had taken him, to please let him go. Zach had his arm around Kirsten and she wondered what would happen if she shoved JJ aside and confessed on camera. But then Zach and Henry would go to jail. They were both eighteen. She would go to juvie and there would be a bad TV movie made about her life.
Or the Fortunatos would arrange to kill them all. If she confessed, she would have to talk about the money. The reason why Uncle Larry had tried to kill Zach.
The Fortunato people, when they were over at the house, never searched anywhere or went into the attic. Maybe JJ didn’t know about the money. Kirsten herself did not dare go up into the attic to see if it was still there, and there wasn’t a time in the weeks that followed when she could have because other people were constantly around. JJ was on leave from her job, and there were always other parents there, lending support.
Did you tell them about the others? Did you tell them about her?
She wanted to ask Zach what Larry’s last words meant, but she didn’t dare whisper any strand of the truth, not with JJ in the house, or Fortunato, or anyone else. They talked, but not about this. Never about this.
The crank calls and tips poured into the police: Larry had been spotted in Houston, boarding a flight for Brazil; Larry had run to Mexico; Larry had been kidnapped; Larry had turned on the Fortunatos and gone into witness protection, leaving JJ and the kids to fend for themselves.
For ten days the vanished accountant was the lead story, until three men were shot near the French Quarter, and then the story lost momentum. Kirsten and Zach didn’t go to school for a week, and then they went back and everyone was so nice to them. Especially Paul, who seemed to think they might know where their foster father was and asked gentle questions about it until Kirsten finally snapped at him, “Of course we don’t know. Why would he tell us? We’re moving out of his house in a few months. We’re not his actual kids, you know.”
And that shut Paul up.
“He suspects,” Henry said to them both as they stood alone after school in the St. Gentian courtyard. It was the one place they could talk and not be noticed or heard. “Paul mentions what he overhears to Zach and then that night Larry vanishes.”
“Larry could have already known he was in trouble.” The thought of the Fortunatos believing that she and Zach knew where Larry was scared her. But they’d never cornered her or Zach to question them.
A local reporter wrote a story mentioning that Larry Melancon was, after all, a missing accountant with ties to the Fortunato family, but Steve had his lawyers respond that the Fortunato businesses were entirely legitimate and he deeply resented any suggestion they were not. The police and the FBI dug into Larry’s files, but his computers had been wiped clean. The Fortunatos had erased any possible trails that law enforcement might have followed.
JJ sank into a depression. The disappearance undid her and Kirsten’s heart ached for her. JJ was waiting for the impossible—for Larry to come home.
The school year inched along. Zach and Paul both played varsity basketball, and JJ and Fortunato would not sit near each other; JJ, Kirsten decided, had started to figure out that Fortunato’s interest in her missing husband was not just the concern of one football father for another. She wondered how much JJ knew about Larry’s activities. Kirsten and Henry would sit together on the top row of the bleachers, watching St. Gentian play St. Martin or Newman, away from everyone. They could whisper and not be overheard.
“How is she?” Henry asked during the last home game.
“She still has that list of relatives and friends. I think she believes one of them is hiding him. There’s a name circled on there. Linda Davidson. I think she was Larry’s college girlfriend at LSU. JJ calls her and keeps asking if she’s sure she doesn’t know where Larry is. If she’s hiding him, JJ just wants to know if he’s all right.”
Henry closed his eyes. “I feel for her. When you and Zach leave she’ll be alone in that house.”
“I think she’ll just keep fostering kids. Like, forever, so she won’t be lonely. I don’t know. She and Larry were a good team.” Until he tried to kill Zach.
“A good team,” Henry murmured. And for the first time, he took her hand.
She could tell he was waiting to see if she pulled her hand away. She didn’t.
They were bound together like he’d given her an engagement ring. He had done the unimaginable for her, with a steady resolve and cool that belied his years. She used to wonder about Henry, but then she read accounts of extraordinary bravery and resourcefulness shown by soldiers his age, and she realized: This was Henry’s battlefield, and he fought for me.
“I did it because I wanted to protect you and give you the life you deserve,” he said very quietly, but she could hear his words under the cheers as Paul sank a basket and St. Gentian regained the lead. “You don’t owe me. You will never owe me. I don’t want it to be that way between us.” He was looking straight ahead. Not at her.
She looked at him. A boy in glasses. But he was a warrior underneath that calm facade, a coolheaded knight with fire in his eyes who had saved her and Zach.
She squeezed his hand. She had grown to love his plain, unremarkable face. She wanted to kiss him. So she turned his chin toward her and she did just that. A sweet, short kiss, since they were out in public. He smiled and he lowered his eyes and then she saw JJ watching them, ten rows down, and then she turned her attention back to the court because Zach had the ball, driving down toward the basket.
The school year ended, then a long awkward summer, mostly spent out of the house. Zach hung around with Paul a lot. Kirsten wondered how he managed, his guard always up so he wouldn’t betray any knowledge of Larry’s fate. Kirsten tried to make amends by helping JJ around the house. But JJ sank into a blue funk. She went to work at the microbrewery, came home, sat on the couch, then stared into space or mindlessly watched TV for hours. Kirsten did the cleaning and the cooking (sometimes making Zach help), worked a part-time job at a mall candy store, went to movies with Henry, and thought, I just have to make it until the day we leave for college.
That day finally came. They were up in their rooms, and JJ was downstairs on the couch, sinking into it, staring off into nothing.
“You can’t let Steve Fortunato pay for college,” Kirsten said. “You’ll be bound to them forever.”
“I don’t have a choice. I don’t have scholarships like you.” Zach was packing. She was already packed. Henry was going to drive Zach to Baton Rouge to attend LSU, then take himself and Kirsten farther west to Lafayette and ULL. Henry’s parents were following in an SUV full of Henry’s stuff. Zach and Kirsten barely had anything to take.
“Don’t go to work for them after college then,” she said.
“I have to, for a while,” Zach said. “It will be fine. I promise you, it’s okay.” His voice was steady and she didn’t know how to say: I’m scared for you. I’m scared for what your life will be.
Then they heard the noise.
The creak of the attic ladder being lowered outside their bedrooms. They looked at each other. Zach went and opened the door in time to see JJ climbing up the steps.
They stared at each other. Kirsten had a sudden vision of having missed a bloodstain. The bat was gone, in the bayou with Larry.
They could hear JJ rummaging around up there. Pacing. Walking. Kirsten looked at Zach in wordless terror. Zach opened his door.
“That’s odd,” they heard her say.
Kirsten slowly climbed up the ladder. She saw JJ looking around the attic. “What is it?” she said.
“I had a rug up here I was going to give you for your dorm room. Blue and gray.”
The rug Larry’s body was wrapped in. “Oh. I really don’t need a rug,” Kirsten said. “My roommate said she’d bring one in school colors.”
“Well, but where is it?” JJ put her hands on her hips. “I’m sure I didn’t throw it out.”
Kirsten glanced in the other direction, through the path of the old boxes.
The stack of coolers was gone. She stared at the emptiness.
She looked back at JJ, and JJ was watching her stare at the space where the money had been.
“I don’t know,” Kirsten said.
“I guess you’ll have to do without a rug,” JJ said, but something had shifted in her voice. Something that made Kirsten want to run.
“Thanks for thinking of it for me,” Kirsten said. She went down the stairs.
JJ lingered in the attic another five minutes before she came down.
The coolers were gone. Had JJ found them and taken the money? Or had the Fortunatos? It didn’t matter; the coolers were gone. Thousands upon thousands of dollars.
She wondered: Zach, you knew the money was there. Did you take it?
She didn’t dare ask. She didn’t want to know. She was glad the money was gone; it wasn’t something she could have looked at again.
When they were all gathered outside, the good-byes were awkward. JJ told them they could always come back for Thanksgiving and to call her if they needed anything. She didn’t have more foster children coming right now—she needed a break from it, she said, and it was hard without Larry—but she wanted to hear from them. Kirsten tried to hug her and JJ allowed it, but she felt stiff and awkward. Kirsten stepped back quickly.
“The house is gonna feel so empty now,” JJ said.
I’m sorry, Kirsten wanted to say. I’m so sorry. But she said nothing.
“We’ll call you,” Zach said. The hug JJ gave him was awkward too. Her gaze kept flickering between the two of them.
“I’ll be fine,” JJ answered. But this was in front of Henry’s parents, and Kirsten thought it had the air of a performance, that same bright-toned reminder her first day with JJ that studies came first.
She suspects, Kirsten thought. The missing rug. Me looking at the spot where the coolers were. She suspects.
But she can’t prove anything.
Finally in the car and headed down the interstate, Henry’s parents not far behind, it was the first time the three of them had been alone in a long while. Truly alone.
“What did Larry mean,” Kirsten began, “when he said did you tell them about the others? Or her? Do you think he meant JJ? Maybe she knew all about that money.”
“Why are you asking me that now?”
“Because I think about it every day.”
Zach didn’t answer for a long minute. “I can wait you out,” Kirsten said.
“When we would go fishing, sometimes he’d get a blue cooler from the attic and a green cooler from the garage. We’d go to a park and fish and I wasn’t allowed to open the blue cooler. One time I did when he went to go piss. The blue cooler was full of cash. I closed it and acted like I didn’t know. He’d leave behind the blue cooler. Just on the shore, or by the picnic table. Once I watched in the rearview and a woman and a girl came out of the woods and grabbed it. Like they were waiting for us to leave.”
“Where did you fish?” Kirsten asked.
“Sometimes we’d go all the way to Baton Rouge. Sometimes much closer. Never the same place.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Kirsten asked.
“Because why would I? Knowing about cash he was spreading around Louisiana would only make trouble for you,” Zach said.
So he had been leaving money for these two—at least, and maybe other people; maybe those were the others—to pick up? Accomplices in his plot to stash and squirrel away stolen money. Was he doing this for himself? For a rival mob?
“If you knew about the money, you could have taken it.”
“Do I look crazy?” Zach said. “Hell no.”
“Did you tell the Fortunatos it was there?” she asked. Maybe they came and took it away.
“No. We all agreed.”
“So either JJ found the coolers and realized it was theirs and gave it back to them, or she took it and they don’t have it back,” Henry said.
“That’s not the point,” Kirsten said. “She saw me looking right where it was.”
“You were just looking around the attic. You’re being paranoid,” Henry said.
“Paul hasn’t said a word to me about the money,” Zach said. “They don’t ask and I don’t tell.”
“But they’re paying for your college,” Kirsten said.
“I’m not putting that in jeopardy by bringing up Larry.”
“So maybe if it’s not JJ, then that’s who he meant by ‘her.’ This lady picking up the cash.”
“I guess so. He told me nothing. I think he didn’t give a crap about fishing and I was cover for him so JJ wouldn’t suspect. I don’t know who the her is.”
“What did they look like?”
“Didn’t really see them. Baseball caps and sunglasses. We were speeding away.” Zach glanced at her. “Kirsten?”
“What?”
“This is the very last time we discuss this. Never again. Okay?”
“All right.”
“We got to stick together.” Zach glanced at Henry, who was driving. “You’re my sister.”
“Not really,” she said, her standard answer.
“Always really,” he said.
She believed him.
So Kirsten started college with anxiety about her scholarships and if she’d be able to ace her courses, and wondering if she’d get along with her roommate, and being nervous about being smart enough and good enough and wondering if JJ or the Fortunatos would appear at her dorm room asking, Where is he? We know you know.
JJ called her once a week for the first few weeks. The conversations tried to be pleasant but always ended up strained.
“Odd thing,” JJ said at the end of her first month at college. “I found something of Larry’s.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter. But it’s just something he wouldn’t have left behind if he had a choice. If he just left us all. He would have taken it with him.”
“What was it?”
JJ didn’t answer.
In the spring semester of their freshman year, Henry’s great-uncle died in New Orleans and he went home for the funeral. He called her when he got back and asked her to meet him downstairs. Something in the tone of his voice sounded off.
It was raining lightly, and people weren’t out. No one was near them.
He didn’t waste time.
“I saw JJ. She’s moving out of the house. It’s for sale.”
“Oh. Why?”
“She said she can’t afford to keep it, not without Larry’s income.” He stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Where is she going?”
“I think into an apartment. There was a girl there, helping her. Her new foster.”
“Oh.” Kirsten felt a sick mix of relief and worry. She had spent Thanksgiving at school, studying, and then Christmas break with her roommate’s family in Natchitoches, who were wonderful and very parental and had taken Kirsten into their hearts. Zach had spent it with Paul and his family. JJ had presumably been alone, but Kirsten, once freed of the house, could not face going back to it. It would be like reentering a prison. “Did she ask about me?”
“Yes. I told her we were dating and she said to tell you hi.”
“That moment when she saw me looking at the spot where the coolers were. And she couldn’t find her rug. I still think she suspects we know something.”
“She doesn’t. She hasn’t gone to the police.”
“But…”
“If she suspected, she would go to the cops. She hasn’t. We’re fine.”
“Is she okay?”
Henry took her hand. “I don’t know. It’s probably a good sign she’s fostering another kid. Keeping herself busy.”
“A little kid?”
“No, a year or two younger than us, I’d guess. She was helping JJ load the U-Haul. We didn’t talk.”
“She must miss Larry terribly,” Kirsten said suddenly. “I think if someone took you from me…”
“Hey. Hey.” Henry ran a thumb along her jaw. “She’ll be okay. In a way maybe she’s better off without Larry.”
“She just lost her house, Henry. Don’t pretty up what we did.”
“Have you talked to her?”
