Page 24 of I Know She Was There

CHAPTER11

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27

Ithought about Mary dozens of times over the next week. Had she been telling the truth about how Bill died, or had I merely witnessed the ravings of a drunk? There was no way to know for sure unless I asked her when she was sober. I didn’t intend to do that. Mary was off-limits. Tasha was too. I had no desire to see her anytime soon. I texted her I’d be busy this coming Thursday, so she’d need not drop by after work.

Thinking about Tasha, my body stiffened. How would she react if I tried to stop her from soothing her little ones? I imagined her composure might slip, giving me a glimpse of the fierce resentment that could turn her beautiful face ugly. I mean, honestly, the basis of our friendship was our shared motherhood, wasn’t it? It was really the only thing we had in common.

But without Mary or Tasha I was alone. I’d lived in town less than a year and was now freshly separated. The only other woman I’d befriended was Muzzy Owen, who probably wouldn’t let me step onto her property, much less invite me in for coffee. I sighed and stretched my neck to the left and right to ease the sudden tension in my shoulders. I must discover whether Tim felt he needed Muzzy as much as I did. And if that need was reciprocated.

Time to go back, said Mother.

“Go back,” I repeated out loud.

To the place you always go.

* * *

I scooted from Woodmint onto Primrose, after studiously ignoring Jane’s house as I passed it. That bitch couldn’t keep me out of her neighborhood. Her street had become the only way to reach Muzzy’s house. Since being spooked on Pine Hill, I avoided that road altogether. Just thinking about Melanie on that fateful evening made my stomach cramp. I was no closer to solving the mystery of what had happened that night, so I tried to put it out of my mind for a while. If I was going to teach Emmy society’s rules for fitting in, I had to curb my obsessive tendencies.

I paused in front of Muzzy’s house, bending over thebabyzen, pretending to minister to Emmy. Hoping my former friend would emerge from her front door with her welcoming smile and a plate of home-baked sugar cookies. We’d hug, and I’d apologize for what I’d done months earlier. She’d graciously accept and explain how she and Tim had become friends, how he’d listened to her troubles with sympathy. Tim, I knew, could be a very good listener when he wanted to be. I stared at her windows, unable to see past the sun’s rays bouncing off the glass.

Muzzy never came out of the house, and I was afraid to knock on her front door, having predetermined the reunion would be more successful if we appeared to meet by chance. The more often I passed by her place, the better my odds of catching her coming or going.

I straightened and looked around the street, noticing no cars in front of Muzzy’s. I glanced at my former friend’s yard, my gaze taking in the still swing set and the trampoline, one side of it sunk lower than the other. I sighed. Muzzy used to spend every day outdoors, weather permitting. Had I ruined that for her? Was that my lot in life? To devastate everything and everyone I came into contact with?

I risked a glance up ahead, gritting my teeth. The small pond’s fountain spewed effusively, as if putting on a great show. Vying for my notice. I forced myself to look at the gushing water pumping with the enthusiasm of an attention-seeking child.Look at me! Look at me!

I shivered, gazing at the gentle ripples ruffling the pond’s surface, my lips pressing into a hard line. Blinking rapidly, I tried to displace the image of little Brandon’s body floating motionless in the vast expanse of water, and my own flailing form, also stretched out on the water’s surface. I wouldn’t allow myself to look away.

Hearing the rhythmic lapping against the muddy bank, a tangy, unpleasant taste, like bile, traveled up my windpipe, stinging my throat and settling on my tongue. I knew the mesmerizing motion of the water concealed the pond’s inherent dangers, so why hadn’t I tried to rescue the toddler the day of Muzzy’s picnic? And how the hell had I, myself, ended up in the damned thing less than two weeks earlier?

I looked down, knowing why I’d always preferred the honest pounding of ocean surf. The relentlessly smashing waves warned of hazards that still pond water cleverly veiled.

An image of Tim at the beach invaded my brain. We’d honeymooned in an oceanfront condo in Key West, but I’d never gone near the water. Two years later, just before I’d gotten pregnant, Tim had taken me to the Jersey Shore for a few days, claiming he was sick of my nagging for a vacation. Once again, I parked myself in the sand as Tim—with exaggerated eye rolling—filled a toy bucket with ocean water for me to drizzle onto my sun-heated skin. He’d had no patience for yet another weakness.Why take beach vacations if you hate the beach?

What he hadn’t considered was that I loved the beach. Cuddling into the warm sand, enveloping as a lover’s embrace.

I closed my eyes, my mind ballooning with all the thoughts colliding in my head—Tim and his eye rolls, my last day with Muzzy and her terrified face, Jane’s knowing look, Mary’s boozy confession, Melanie’s intense stare. I snapped my eyes open. I had to clear my head. I hurried past Muzzy’s at a near run, emptying my mind of everything but the smooth pavement under my feet and the pristine lawns hemming the street—endless yards of turf without the weeds that muscled out the grass in every other neighborhood.

It was no use. I thought of Matt tending his weedless yard, the rich green hue a perfect complement to the cheery red custom Cape. The image in my mind so perfectly at odds with the scene I’d witnessed in the upstairs bedroom window. The thought struck me like a blow to my head:noneof my problems would be resolved if I couldn’t figure out this one. That’s what 21 Pine Hill, and the lives attached to it, had become for me. Not only a big problem, but a referendum on my life. Was I going to step up and admit what I’d seen, and possibly help the woman I thought of as Melanie, or would I cower in fear as I’d done that day at the pond, with Muzzy? The day I’d allowed my deep-seated dread to guide my actions—or, more appropriately, my complete lack of action.

* * *

Sleep once again eluded me. My mind spun like a dozen pinwheels in a wind gust, but one thought emerged above all others: if I could convince one person of my story, I wouldn’t be alone in this quest to discover what happened. I wouldn’t be crazy. Closing my eyes, I saw Melanie on the backs of my lids, but her image shattered as Emmy’s cries invaded the stillness. My eyes flew open, and I felt my way along the darkened walls to my baby’s bedroom.

Tending to Emmy’s needs was grounding. I was profoundly thankful for the respite—the all-consuming process of mothering—before having to focus once more on Melanie and her injuries—possibly deadly injuries.

Possibly deadly injuries. That was the thing, wasn’t it? She might not even be dead. But how could shenotbe? I was not a medical professional, but that gash in her throat looked fatal. Yet I knew better than anyone that appearances could be deceiving.

Jeffrey Trembly’s appearance at Matt and Melanie’s house had certainly been convenient. I rocked Emmy back to sleep, thinking the man whom I’d looked upon as a helper could have very well been a killer. Perhaps he’d slashed Melanie’s throat in the house he had a key to. Then he’d heard me enter downstairs and snuck up behind me, smashing something into my skull and knocking me out.

But it couldn’t have happened like that. There was only one staircase. I would have seen him descending the steps.

Perhaps he’d climbed out a front upstairs window, dropped onto the porch roof, and shimmied down the post to enter the house from the front door behind me. I hadn’t closed it, had I? Once I was out cold, he could have loaded Melanie, Emmy, and me into his Jeep, conveniently concealed in the garage. He’d dumped my unconscious body in the pond, assuming I’d drown, ditched Emmy on the side of the road, and stashed Melanie elsewhere. Or maybe he’d deposited her in the water too. The thought of struggling to swim mere feet away from Melanie’s dead body turned me instantly cold. I rubbed my upper arms.

It made sense. I’d been unconscious for hours, giving Jeffrey plenty of time to clean up the mess. He’d be able to account for his whereabouts. He could say he was out on the beat, investigating a news story when all along he’d been at the Pine Hill house. Hell, when I’d seen him pull up to the pond, he might have just completed his grim cleanup.

I could go to police headquarters. Share my story. My heart lifted at the prospect but dropped just as quickly. Why would the authorities believe me now when they hadn’t before? There still wasn’t evidence of a crime, was there? Other than the partial fake fingernail I’d dislodged from between the master bedroom’s floorboards. They’d surely wonder when I’d found it, which would lead to the revelation that I’d been in the houseaftermy visit from the police officers. Rather than being convinced a crime had occurred on the property, they could launch an investigation intome, discovering how I liked to take my sketchy nighttime strolls and spy on the residents of Deer Crossing.

---