Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
Seabrook, New Hampshire
F elicia Bonanno’s double-wide looks even smaller than it did the first time I was here.
I can smell Lestoil and Pledge, evidence that she tidied up when I called to say I was coming.
I wanted to get here early, before she heard the news about Amber.
I’m not about to tell her anything that the guy who confessed said, not until I get some kind of confirmation from Garrett.
Felicia puts a basket of muffins on the coffee table, then sits down across from me with two mugs—tea for her, black coffee for me.
“Felicia, have the police called you this morning?”
“No.” Then she goes white.
She puts down her mug, her hand trembling.
“Why? Did they find something? About Suzanne?”
I lean over and rest my hand on her knee.
“Felicia, there was a shooting last night in Boston. A murder. The woman who was killed was Amber Keenan.”
“Suzanne’s friend?” Felicia says, clearly shocked.
“I never met Amber. Only talked to her that once on the phone. But I know she and Suzanne were good friends. They looked out for each other. Do they know who did it?”
“There were two shooters last night. The police are still looking for them.”
Suddenly, she stands up.
“Brea, come. I want to show you something.” She reaches for my hand.
I put down my coffee and follow her down the narrow hallway to the back of the trailer.
We stop in front of a closed door.
Felicia reaches up and runs her hand along the top of the molding.
She pulls down a key, puts it in the lock, and turns it.
Then she opens the door and flicks on the light.
It’s a bedroom, carpeted in blue.
The window shade is drawn.
The walls are decorated with Patriots cheerleader posters.
Over a small desk hangs a bulletin board covered with faded snapshots and newspaper clippings.
Pinned in the middle is a publicity shot of Cole Wright in his Patriots uniform, helmet under his arm.
“This is her room,” says Felicia.
“Just how it was.”
A small flat-screen TV sits on a wooden dresser, a DVD player alongside it.
Felicia powers it up, then opens the top dresser drawer and pulls out a stack of thin plastic cases.
“The police took all these, but they brought them back.”
She inserts a silver DVD in the player.
The TV flickers, then lights up.
I’m looking at a scene of Patriots cheerleaders performing a routine in an empty stadium.
It must be a practice session, but the ladies are in full uniform—red, white, and blue spangled shorts and tops.
And they’re going full out.
Kicking, dancing, strutting, beaming.
The camera starts at one end of the line and pans across.
These girls are clearly athletes.
They also look like specimens from a glamour lab, all variations on a physical theme: Long legs.
Toned bellies. Bright smiles.
Thick, bouncy hair.
Felicia presses a button to freeze the frame.
Then she gently taps the screen.
“There she is. My baby.”
Just twenty-two.
I stare at her beautiful face.
I’ve seen pictures of Suzanne Bonanno, but nothing like this.
In the middle of her practice, she’s radiant.
Almost supernatural.
Suzanne is one of the tallest girls, positioned at the center of the formation.
She appears to know exactly where the camera is, because she’s looking right into it, her eyes bright and sparkling.
It’s like she’s looking at me.
Felicia hits play and lets the video run another few seconds.
She freezes it again.
“And that’s Amber.”
It takes a second for me to recognize the woman with the long blond hair as the bartender I talked to yesterday.
The one who’s now on a slab in a Boston morgue.
The DVD cuts to show a corridor of a children’s hospital.
In this clip, a smaller group of cheerleaders are in street clothes in Patriots colors.
Surrounding them are nurses in scrubs and smiling kids—some in wheelchairs, some holding on to rolling IV stands.
Felicia turns the sound up.
Suzanne is talking to whoever’s behind the camera.
“We love performing at the games, but we love being here too, with the kids, being part of the community.” She turns and passes out kid-size Patriots jerseys to the young patients.
She turns back and brushes a lock of hair out of her eyes.
Her nails are painted Patriots blue.
A tennis bracelet with gleaming red jewels sparkles on her wrist. “Games matter,” says Suzanne, “but to me, this is even more important.”
The camera pulls back to a wide shot.
I can see Amber on the right, handing out mini-footballs, as the other cheerleaders hug the kids.
When the camera pans to a local reporter, Felicia turns the video off.
“And that’s all I have left of Suzanne.”
I wrap my arms around the grieving mother and feel her lean into my shoulder, sobbing.
I’m probably violating some rule of journalistic objectivity, but screw it.
I squeeze her tight.
“Suzanne was a very special person,” I say.
“I know you really miss having her here with you.”
I can feel Felicia nodding against me as her voice breaks.
“I do.”
As we hug in front of the dresser, I hear the front door open, then slam shut.
“Mom, you here?”
Teresa.
Felicia straightens up and grabs a tissue from a box on the dresser.
She wipes her eyes and dries her nose.
“In here, honey!” she calls out.
Suddenly, Teresa is in the doorway.
Her eyes go cold when she sees me.
“You!” she says. I can smell booze on her breath.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had more questions for your mother.”
“Oh, yeah? Like the questions you had for Amber Keenan? ’Cause I just heard the news on the Boston station. It looks like whatever questions you asked her got her killed!”