Лиза Гарднер - Never Tell - A Novel (A D.D. Warren and Flora Dane Novel)

I would whisper, “Love you, Papa,” then scramble down before anyone (my mother) caught me.

I don’t enter the sitting room, though the front parlor, across the way, is just as bad. The baby grand piano, where I used to sit and play for hours while my father relaxed on the settee across from it. The piles of music still sitting on the closed cover. The faint smell of wax and pipe smoke. In the corner sits the octagonal game table that would be dragged out for poker nights.

I imagine given my mother’s busy social life, it’s still in use, but I don’t like to think about it. In my mind, it’s my father’s table. My mother’s house, but my father’s table, my piano.

Then there’s the kitchen, where my father died.

My mother reaches for my coat, before remembering I don’t have one. She hangs up her own in the hall closet. She is still talking. I nod absently.

We pass my father’s study, neither one of us looking. I don’t have to peek inside to know the walls remain plastered in awards and honorary degrees, that his favorite pens are still scattered across the desktop, along with a yellow legal pad still scribbled with last-minute thoughts. For the first few years after his death, I could smell him every time I walked in. The whisper of his aftershave. Something expensive my mom imported from England just for him. Sandalwood, a hint of lemon, something else.

It used to be how I knew he’d come home. I’d catch a whiff of his aftershave floating through the house.

I don’t catch it now. Sixteen years later, scent fades, no matter how much both my mom and I are loath to let it go.

“Your rooms are ready for you, of course.”

I nod again. With the exception of the kitchen, my mother hasn’t changed anything about the house. Anything, which cracked Conrad up the first time he visited.

“Is this like your childhood bed?” he said, bouncing up and down on the obviously girlish comforter. “I feel like I’m corrupting a minor. Maybe I can be the handsome bad boy, sneaking into your room after your parents have gone to bed. Ever fantasize about the local rebel without a cause?”

I’d merely smiled. The girl I’d been in high school hadn’t attracted the attention of boys, bad or otherwise. I’d been quiet and awkward, then after my father’s death, just plain freaky.

Meeting Conrad … He’d been the first person to truly see me. To tell me I was sexy and attractive and the girl of his dreams. For him, I’d come alive. For him, I’d started believing in second chances.

I should’ve known better.

There is moisture on my face. Am I crying? I don’t want to cry. Mostly, I’d like to shower.

My mom is headed up the vast, sweeping staircase that dominates the center of the house. I follow her up to the second floor, where, yes, my suite of rooms is exactly as I left it.

“This is where the nursery will be,” my mom is saying. “I’m sure you want it closest to you. But I didn’t want it so far away from me that I couldn’t help out.”

For the first time, I register where we are standing. In one of the rooms that used to be part of my suite. I believe it had been a sizable dressing room, designed to hold the dozens of dresses my mom had been so sure I’d one day love wearing.

Now the room is devoid of shelving, makeup trays, and shoe trees. Instead, it has been painted a pastel green and contains a lovely white-painted crib and matching diaper table.

I stare at my mother. I’d only called her with the news of my pregnancy a few weeks ago. And not just because I had to gear myself up to make contact, but because Conrad and I had wanted to keep the news to ourselves for the first three months. Our baby. Our family. Our accomplishment.

We would sleep spooned together at night, his hands splayed on my still-flat belly. Everything looking the same but feeling different.

“How did you … when did you?” I don’t know what to say.

“I don’t love the sage green,” my mother announces briskly. “It’s the top gender-neutral color, but it feels plain to me. The room itself has no imagination, and that won’t do. You have to consider that from the very beginning, Evelyn, your baby may have extraordinary intellect. How best to stimulate and nurture such a mind must be integral to the nursery’s design. Are you listening to Bach? Reading to the baby in the womb? Better yet, what about playing the piano? That kind of auditory, and yet also kinetic, experience would be deeply beneficial.”

My jaw is still hanging open. I don’t know what to say, what to do. Even by the standards I’ve come to expect from my mom, this has caught me off guard.

I find myself already wondering—did she pay bail to get me out of jail, or to save the next family genius? And if I’m found guilty of murder and sent off to prison, leaving her alone to raise the baby, would that even bother her?

“I need to shower,” I hear myself say.

“Of course. I took the liberty of stocking up on some maternity clothes for you. You’ll find them all hanging in the closet.”

Again, when? How? Do I want to know?

I find myself studying my mother. The elegantly coiffed hair, the perfectly made-up face. She really does have beautiful blue eyes. Now, she regards me guilelessly, which makes the hairs rise on the backs of my arms, because nothing about my mother is without guile. As if reading my mind:

“Don’t worry about your job,” she says. “I already phoned your principal and said you wouldn’t be back.”

“You quit my job?”

“What did you think was going to happen? There’s going to be a murder trial, you know. You certainly can’t be showing up at a public high school every day through that. And by the time this nonsense has all wrapped up, you’ll be ready to have your baby. Might as well let the administrators know now.”

She makes it sound so matter-of-fact. The job I loved gone, just like that. Indeed, what did I think was going to happen?

“Do you want to know?” I hear myself whisper.

“Know what, dear?”

“Did I kill him. Did I shoot my own husband.”

She pats my arm. “No need to stress yourself out, honey. Other people will judge. Other people will wonder. Which is why family is so important. We understand each other. I know everything I need to know about you and Conrad.”

“And what is that?”

She regards me directly with those big blue eyes. “That it was an accident, of course. Nothing but an unfortunate accident.”

Chapter 8 D.D.

“WE NEED TO FIND OUT everything about this couple, ASAP,” D.D. said. She and Phil had returned to BPD headquarters. Phil sat in his office chair, leaning way back, his hands tucked behind his head. D.D. walked small circles. They both had their way of thinking things through.

“Conrad Carter,” Phil rattled off now. “Thirty-nine years old. No criminal history. No living family.”

“Shit,” D.D. said.

“Worked for a major window corporation. Already talked to the head honcho. Guess what?”

“Everyone liked him, no one knew him well,” D.D. intoned.

“Exactly. Guy worked out of his home. Had an excellent reputation for sales. Kept up on his quotes, bid sheets, on-site specs. Manager had nothing bad to say about him. Then again, he saw the guy once a month at management meetings. He didn’t even know Conrad and his wife were expecting a baby until he heard it on the news.”

“Pregnant wife accidentally shoots husband. Three times,” D.D. muttered. “Press is going to have a field day with this one.”

“So much for open-and-shut,” Phil agreed. He yawned.

She glared at him.

He shrugged. “Hey, I was the one working the scene half the night. Sergeant. ”