Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30
D etermined to root out the truth, I passed 21 Pine Hill Road every evening now. It wasn’t lost on me that I was obsessing over Melanie the way I’d once focused on Jane—and Muzzy before her. The difference, of course, was that now I had a reason to be here. I was on the trail of a possible killer.
Of a possibly dead woman , said my mother. Or maybe not .
I paused in front of Melanie’s, squeezing my eyes tight against my mother’s voice and the events that had occurred in Deer Crossing. Or had they? Perhaps nothing I’d witnessed had happened. After all, I’d seen the injured woman right after passing by Muzzy’s house—the woman I suspected of having an affair with my husband. Had something in me snapped, prompting me to see things that weren’t there?
I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead. The Pine Hill house was still empty. The grass was cut regularly, but even its well-maintained length couldn’t mask the lack of life around the place. Each time I paused in front of the Cape, I’d search the dark windows and empty porch for any sign of life. I hadn’t contacted the police with my suspicions about Jeffrey Trembly. They wouldn’t believe me now if they hadn’t before. Time would only make my story less plausible. How could he be charged with a murder that didn’t appear to have been committed?
Still, I couldn’t let it go. I fixated on the idea that Jeffrey Trembly had killed the woman. I was frustrated by my inability to prove it but was equally determined to avoid him. I didn’t even venture near his house. The latest danger on Woodmint Lane. I stuck to the west side of Deer Crossing, fantasizing about tricking the killer into a confession but knowing full well I had no evidence.
As I stood on Pine Hill that night, exactly one year after my mother’s fatal accident, another layer of melancholy drifted onto me like pollen, settling into every crevice and making me itch. My memories of her were complex. She’d been a stickler for always displaying proper manners, which was difficult, at times, for my child’s mind to remember, but I’d never known her as a mother myself. I’d secretly harbored the notion that once I had Emmy, everything she’d ever said or done would automatically make sense to me. It hadn’t.
My face burning with shame, even in the dark, I recalled my self-mutilating phase at age nine, when I’d cherish every tearful presentation to my undemonstrative mom of skinned knees, painful bruises, and broken bones, the more serious, the better. When my hurts were exceedingly painful, she’d soothe me with gentle words and tender touches, cementing in my mind the idea that she loved me. At least a little.
As a result, I became known as the fearless kid in our suburban neighborhood. The girl who climbed to the tippy-top branches of trees and challenged the older kids to fistfights. The girl I thought I never would have evolved into had my dad still been alive.
I never had to ask Daddy to sing silly songs to me. He just did. In falsetto. And when I placed my tiny bare feet on top of his wide, flat ones, we’d walk as one through the tall, silky summer grass. He’d take giant steps that made my little legs splay so far apart, I’d have fallen into a painful split if not for his strong, solid hands holding mine way above my head. Lifting me up and away from potential pain.
I bit down on my lip, trying to recall his voice as we climbed into the rowboat that last day, but it wouldn’t come to me. I blinked rapidly, panicked. Why couldn’t I remember his voice? I thought about that light-infused morning; we’d drifted out to the center of the lake. A tremor passed through me; I closed my eyes. Disjointed images bombarded my brain like dodgeballs: my mother’s fearful face, the boat’s edge tipping precariously, the greenish-gray world of water, around me, in me, pressing its unseen mass down on me.
I opened my eyes, still living in the memory, expecting to see hazy daylight; the surge of black evening air filling my pupils made me think fleetingly of blindness. Instantly my mind recalibrated, catapulting me back to the present: 21 Pine Hill Road, bled of its bright red hue in the grainy darkness. This evening was darker than when I’d rushed inside to aid the woman. Now it was later, quieter. My mother’s voice now was nothing more than a memory.
You’ve killed him .
I could hear the echo of her words even now, amid the nighttime cacophony. Piercing as the blatant call of crickets in the side yard. Her voice had confused me the other night, in the house’s foyer, because it had seemed a palpable presence. I hadn’t expected to hear anyone but Melanie. Moaning, or the gargling sound a slashed-open throat must make, trying to take in air and let out a scream.
But that night, I had expected my mother’s words. It was an anniversary, after all. A time to not only remember but relive the events of our shared past. And that most vivid phrase, uttered to me by my shocked, desperate mother all those years earlier still clung to me as though attached by Velcro.
You’ve killed him.
I wondered if he blamed me. If my dad was in an alternate universe somewhere, watching. If so, would he judge me as lacking? As guilty?
How could you?
The other words. Accusing. Scathing. Not delivered by my mother but by Tim. Why would he say such a thing? I continued staring at the house, trying to puzzle it out. I was concentrating so hard I wasn’t even surprised to see him materialize alongside the building. A filmy figure gaining definition as he neared.
Why did you say that to me, Tim? Why?
I expected his specter to pause. Think about my question, like he always did. Then answer in that thoughtful, deliberate way of his. But instead, his body startled when he saw me, like Emmy had as a newborn. An involuntary movement.
“Caroline? What are you doing here?” He walked up to me as though I’d invaded his property. “Did you follow me here?”
“What?” I reached out to touch him, reassuring myself he was real.
He jumped back instantly as if I’d menaced him with a cattle prod. “I asked what you are doing here.”
I was confused. “I’m always here, I?—”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Of course not!”
I looked down at Emmy’s carriage, anger filtering through me. Who did he think he was, appearing here , of all places? Accusing me of tailing him. Of drunkenness. “I might ask you the same thing. What brings you here?”
He stared at me, saying nothing, his jaw rigid. He had a look I recognized. The concentration of calculating weights and measurements... or trying to determine if I was lying to him.
“What’s wrong with you?” I nearly yelled. “Why are you lurking around an empty house in the dark?”
He squinted at me. “Why are you here?”
“I’m taking my nightly walk, Tim. It makes sense that I’m here, but you?—”
“I talked to Mary,” he interrupted. “I dropped by the house. Needed to pick up those tools in the utility closet but forgot my key. You weren’t home, so I went next door to borrow Mary’s spare key.”
I shook my head as if to realign it, force his words to make sense. “Okay, so you were at the house. You talked to Mary. What does that have to do with you standing here, now?”
“She told me about the woman you saw here.” He angled his chin upward, toward the house. “I decided I’d better swing over.”
Icy cold rushed from my head to my feet. “I know what you’re going to say. I’m seeing things again, just like I did after Emmy was born. Just like?—”
“Stop, Caroline. You’re putting words in my mouth.” He rubbed his forehead, a gesture he made when he was frustrated. “I didn’t know what to think, so I just came over here, okay?”
“Trying to think of ways to discredit me?” I challenged. “A way to take away...” I couldn’t continue, couldn’t even fathom him suing me for custody of Emmy. I swallowed a big lump in my throat.
“No, I had to make sure things were all right over here. I knew the couple who lived in this house. Ray worked with me. I met Annie a couple of times too. A few weeks ago, Ray didn’t show up for work. He called in his resignation the next day, but he never came by the office to pick up his things, and never said goodbye to any of us. It was odd.”
I blinked. “You know these people? What did you say their names are?”
“Ray and Annie Connolly. Do you know them?”
I shook my head. Matt’s name was really Ray. And Melanie was called Annie. “I’ve never met them. I just saw?—”
“Mary told me what you saw.”
I clenched my jaw. “You don’t believe me.”
He held his hands up in front of him as if to ward off an attack from a rabid dog. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Mary told me you mentioned the police don’t believe you.”
“By the time they got to the house it had been hours. Plenty of time for someone to clean up.”
The wary expression on Tim’s face softened. “Caroline, are you taking care of yourself?”
That got me. I swallowed the emotion bubbling up from my chest, causing my lips to tremble and my eyes to tear up. I got this way on the rare occasions Tim showed me an ounce of compassion. I suddenly remembered the line he’d repeated all the time when we were first dating: You’re my oxygen, Caroline .
How my heart would swell at his words; the sweet, romantic notion of him being unable to even breathe without me near made me feel special, cherished.
But I’d learned not to be fooled. Tim could breathe just fine on his own.
“This isn’t about me, Tim. A woman in that house had a terrible accident. She may have even been murdered. You can believe me or not. It doesn’t matter to me what you think.”
“What I think is that you probably haven’t been getting enough sleep. And Tasha called me. Said she dropped by Thursday, and you wouldn’t see her. She’s worried about you. I am too.”
He was turning this into my problem, just like he always did. I locked my eyes with his. “Your concern for my welfare is touching. Had you not told me repeatedly to stay the hell away from you I might even believe you care about me.”
“All I know is you shouldn’t be involved in this disappearance.”
“Aha,” I crowed, my pointer finger in the air between us. “You think what’s going on here is shady too!”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is you’re still my wife, and you shouldn’t be mixed up in someone else’s relationship.”
Still his wife . I didn’t know how to respond to that. For months he’d been trying to distance himself physically and emotionally from me, and now he was reminding me we were still married. After he sent out divorce papers? I stared at him.
He looked down. “I don’t know what’s going on with this couple. I don’t really know her, but he’s a good guy.”
He didn’t sound so good to me. Moving away suddenly, leaving his coworkers in the lurch. Maybe even killing his wife. A thought struck me, prompting me to ask, “How do you know where they live?”
“I’ve been here before. I dropped him off when his car was in the shop and Annie was away.”
“I don’t recall you mentioning the Connollys.”
“I don’t recall having to report to you my every activity,” he retorted, his tone dripping acid.
My face pinked, making me glad it was dark. “I only meant?—”
“Doesn’t matter, Caroline. Just stay away from this place, okay?”
“Why?”
He sighed. “You’ve got enough going on right now. Do you really need more drama in your life?”
He was right, of course. I had my hands full raising Emmy on my own. I bit my lower lip to keep my accusations to myself. Hurling nasty words at Tim only made him turn away from me.
“I never made it to the house,” he said. “I’ll swing by next Wednesday after work and take the tools?—”
“And Emmy,” I finished. He always took Emmy when he swung by.
He grunted. “Do me a favor and stay outside. Your hovering makes me claustrophobic.”
“I don’t understand why you never want me there, Tim. It’s not as though I’m going to force you to take me with you when you leave.”
He sighed. “You’re doing it again, Caroline.”
“I’m not, I’m just saying I can load up Emmy’s things for your visit while you?—”
“I don’t need Emmy’s things, you know that.”
“Of course.” His apartment was fully stocked with his own baby items. God forbid he use anything tainted by my touch. “But I can’t just leave her?—”
He sighed. Ran a hand over his forehead again. “I don’t have the energy for this, Caroline. When you see me pull up front, go for a drive or take one of your weird walks.”
“Fine, but?—”
“No buts,” he cut in sharply. “I can’t endure these verbal battles every time we meet.”
As I walked home, I thought about Tim’s unceasing belligerence toward me and his unexpected appearance on Pine Hill Road. I supposed I understood why he’d lost patience. He’d never been particularly tolerant of my foibles, and when I’d slid into postpartum depression, I’d clearly challenged his limited empathy.
Was that why he’d appeared on Pine Hill Road? Was he concerned I’d run into the couple he’d known and embarrass myself—and him? Or was he, like me, concerned about what had happened to the two of them? Had anything untoward even happened to them?
One thing was certain: now that I had the name of the couple who’d lived at 21 Pine Hill, I planned on digging into Ray and Annie Connolly. Why did they move away so abruptly? Were they running away from something or someone? Or was it more sinister than that? Perhaps it was just Ray on the run, after killing his wife.
It sounded fantastical. After all, people moved out of their houses every day. Why was this any different from anyone else who initiated change in their lives? Because Ray hadn’t appeared to tell anyone before leaving? He could have a plausible reason for not doing so. I didn’t know his work situation. Maybe he’d had a beef with management and was sticking it to them by leaving suddenly without a forwarding address.
I shook my head. Two things about Pine Hill Road were becoming clear: something happened in that house, and every day I discovered new ways in which I was connected to it. There was no way I could stay away.