Alice Sebold - The Almost Moon

“Do you think it was him?”

“We’re following every lead.”

“I don’t want to get Manny in trouble, but…”

“Yes?”

“There’s something else that I didn’t share with anyone.”

“I’m the person to share things with,” he said.

I knew this was the moment to plant the seed. As I spoke, I felt my face flush.

“Around the same time, the contents of my mother’s jewelry box went missing.”

“You didn’t report it to the police?”

“I didn’t notice it for a few weeks, and by that time Manny was gone and I’d had the locks changed. Anyway, I didn’t want to upset my mother. She hadn’t worn most of the jewelry for years.”

“I see. By the way, your mother isn’t the only one who died in the neighborhood in the past twenty-four hours.”

I knew what he was going to tell me and tried quickly to hide any expression that might indicate this.

“It wasn’t Mr. Forrest, was it?”

“Why do you ask about him?”

“Because I’m very fond of him,” I said. “I’ve known him since I was small.”

“And Mrs. Leverton?”

I drew a quick inhalation of breath and covered my mouth with my hand. The action-too calculated-made me immediately self-conscious.

“She was found in her bedroom this morning by a cleaning woman.”

Though I knew what I had seen-Mrs. Leverton alive and leaving in an ambulance-I couldn’t help thinking that at least I’d been present when my mother died.

“How did they die, exactly?” I asked. I felt a light layer of perspiration spread beneath my sweater. My hands grew clammy. Why hadn’t I asked this at the start?

“Very differently. Mrs. Leverton was unconscious but breathing when the maid found her. She died in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

“And my mother?”

“What time did you leave your mother’s house last night?”

I sat up straighter and looked for signs that he was on the verge of accusing me. But he glanced at me mildly and pulled at the crease of his right trouser leg with the same hand that held his pen.

I remembered a phrase Sarah had taught me. Weak Handsome. It was a show-business term that stood for men who were shadows of truly handsome men. They held all the proportions and qualities-hair color, height, etc.-but there was just enough flat or off about them that they were never cast as leads. A weak chin, eyes a bit too far apart, ears that stood out from the sides of their heads. I decided that Robert Broumas was Weak Handsome.

“I want to know how she died,” I said.

“I’ll answer that in a moment. What time did you leave your mother’s house?”

“Shortly after six,” I said. I stopped short of flinching. Mrs. Castle had said she’d seen me at seven.

Detective Broumas flipped back a few pages in his notes. He adjusted himself in the chair, cleared his throat.

“Did you go straight home?”

“No.”

“Where did you go?”

“Mrs. Castle may have told you how badly off my mother was,” I said. “That she hadn’t recognized her yesterday.”

“She did.”

“I knew I would have to call the hospice. That once they took her away, she would never see her house again.”

I found myself crying now. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wiped them with the sleeve of my sweater. She never had to leave her house, I wanted to say. Do you realize how important that was to her?

“I drove around a lot,” I said. “I went to a spot I go to, to think.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s near farmland up near Yellow Springs Road. You can see the Limerick nuclear plant from there.”

“And you stayed there for how long?”

I calculated in my head how long I had been with Hamish and added the extra hour or so I’d still been at my mother’s.

“About three hours.”

“You sat and thought for three hours?”

“I’m afraid to admit that I fell asleep. My mother can be very exhausting.”

“And you went home after that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make any phone calls or talk to anyone?”

“No. Will you tell me how my mother died?” My lies were mounting, and I knew it.

“Her body was found in the basement.”

“The basement? Did she fall?” I stopped. Even to my own ears, I sounded false.

“We aren’t certain yet. We have an autopsy scheduled for this afternoon. What was your mother wearing yesterday?”

I mentioned the skirt I had cut open, the blouse I had ripped, and her putty-colored bra. They must have already collected them from the kitchen floor.

“Was she in the habit of dressing herself?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did your mother go outside the house much?”

“She was agoraphobic,” I said. “It was very hard for her to leave the house.”

“I mean around the yard or, say, taking the trash down the steps outside the kitchen, that sort of thing.”

“She was very willful. She wouldn’t let Mrs. Castle and me do everything.”

I thought we had barely begun, but after placing the thin red ribbon on the current page, Detective Broumas closed his notebook. He visibly relaxed, waving a sort of postural off-duty flag.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he said.

“Can I see her?”

Detective Broumas stood. I stayed in the model’s chair.

“Tomorrow, after the autopsy,” he said. “What’s this like?” He gestured to indicate the room.

“What’s what like?” I asked.

“Doing what you do for a living?” His smile came easily. I hated it. I hated it because I could not tell him to fuck off, because I knew the kind of interest he had. There was sincere and there was prurient.

“Like any other job, but that much more exposed,” I said.

He chuckled to himself and stepped off the platform. I took this as my cue that I could stand.

“We have a few people we still haven’t tracked down who we want to talk to. Neighbors at work, that sort of thing.” He took his jacket off the easel and slipped it on. “There are fingerprints and a footprint to run. We found a small bit of blood on the side porch. It could be your mother’s. Her body had been moved.”

I stepped down from the platform. I felt myself floating.

I pictured myself nude and curled up in the bathtub of my father’s workshop. The tools and hooks that had fallen from the walls were sticking halfway out of my bloodless flesh.

Coldness kills. I saw it as an entry in Jake’s journal, scribbled in his hurried hand. I thought of my mother leaning out my bedroom window when I was a teenager, to braid and rebraid the vine outside. Protecting me from Mr. Leverton had seemed so crucial to her that she had regularly risked falling from the second story of her home. Why hadn’t she been frightened? Had she loved me that much or had it had nothing to do with me? Had my birth merely created an extension of her fear?

The uniformed police officer opened the door.

“I’ll let you get back to your friend and your husband. Oh,” Detective Broumas said, “I’m sorry. Your ex-husband, correct?”

I nodded my head. I had gotten down off the platform only to find myself desperately in need of a chair. I leaned, as nonchalantly as I could, into the carpeted edge of the platform.

“Yes.”

“And how long have you two been divorced?”

“More than twenty years,” I said.

“That’s a long time.”

“We have two daughters.”

“You’re close enough that he would come and repair your mother’s window.”

“Yes.”

“All the way from Santa Barbara?”

“Actually,” I said, “he’s in town to meet his-”

Detective Broumas cut me off. “Yes, yes, he gave me a name. Let’s go, Charlie.”