Page 111 of Golden Girl
Marissa says she was driving over to the Howe residence to see Leo and “make up” when she got a text alert on her phone. Because it was so early, she assumed it could only be Leo. She checked her phone and clicked on the photo as she was turning onto Kingsley Road. She had only glimpsed the photo—she said she wasn’t even sure what she was looking at—when she heard a sickening thud. She slammed on the brakes and realized she had hit a person. She had hit Vivi.
She panicked, she said. There was no one on Kingsley and no cars on the Madaket Road. She backed up and drove west. She took the turn onto Eel Point Road.
“I had every intention of going back to Kingsley,” Marissa said. “But I just…didn’t. Alexis texted to say Vivi was dead and then…she told me another officer had seen Cruz running a stop sign and speeding and that Cruz had probably killed Vivi, and I feltrelievedby that. I was angry at Cruz. By then, I had seen the photograph. So I drove my Jeep into the Bathtub and I told Rip Bonham at my insurance company that I’d done it on Friday night.”
When the Chief called Rip Bonham, Rip said he’d had doubts about Marissa’s story all summer; according to the mechanic, the Jeep hadn’t been submerged for as long as Marissa said it had been. He thought she’d been lying as a way to angle for insurance money, not to cover up a crime.
Rip Bonham put Lisa Hitt in touch with the garage that was holding Marissa’s Jeep. Luminol turned up Vivi’s blood on the fender.
“Every contact leaves a trace,” Lisa Hitt says mournfully to Ed over the phone. “I can’t believe how this turned out. It’s like a…”
“Vivian Howe novel?” Ed says. As relieved as he is to close the case, his heart is heavy for all involved. He has joked many times about having job security—people will never stop making mistakes—but this isn’t funny.
Ed doesn’t get home until noon the next day; he stayed up all night questioning people and filling out paperwork. “Phones,” he says to Andrea. “They’ll be the death of civilization.”
Andrea pulls Ed’s phone out of his shirt pocket. “Leave yours right here,” she says, plugging it in at the kitchen counter. “I got you the pastrami special from the Nickel, then you’re going to bed.”
Vivi
Vivi doesn’t have to call for Martha; she’s right there, the same red and gold scarf from the other day serving as a pocket square.
“Marissa hit me?” Vivi says. “Marissakilledme?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t figure that out,” Martha says. “She checked her phone as she was turning and was just looking at the photograph of Leo and Cruz when she hit you.” Martha pauses. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure out about Leo and Cruz either.”
Since Vivi has been dead, her children have surprised her, it’s true, but she isnotsurprised to learn that her son has romantic feelings for his best friend. The whole Howe-Quinboro clan fell in love with Cruz at least in part because of the sterling quality of Leo’s devotion for Cruz. When Leo was in preschool, he once drew a picture of himself and Cruz living in a house together, with smaller figures that were meant to be their children. The teachers at the school had chuckled about this, Vivi remembers, but at least they were open-minded enough not to tell him the picture was wrong—and Vivi, for her part, had taped it to the refrigerator.
Vivi watches Leo’s conversation with Cruz from a greater distance than she normally does—she wants to afford them some privacy. The conversation takes place on the back deck of Cruz’s house the very same afternoon that Marissa speaks to the police. Vivi can’t hear a word, but she can observe their body language—Leo contrite and Cruz, initially defiant, then softening into forgiveness. The boys end up in silence, sitting side by side, both bent over their knees with their heads in their hands. When Leo stands to go, it’s unclear if they can still be friends.
Leo heads for the side yard—it looks like he’s leaving—and Cruz says something that makes him turn. Cruz opens his arms and Leo walks back to him. The two boys hug for a moment. When they separate, they do a complicated handshake that they’d once tried, unsuccessfully, to teach Vivi. “You two are Frick and Frack,” she had said at the time. “I’m just the mom.”
Vivi listens in on Willa and Carson later that day when they meet in Vivi’s kitchen over glasses of iced tea. They seem to share the same opinion for once: they’re both furious. Marissa Lopresti had been her usualcareless, thoughtless, irresponsible, entitled, needy selfand had picked up herphoneinstead of watching theroad. She had become so absorbed in her owndramathat she had hit Vivi.Killedher.Murderedher. It’s absolutelyreprehensible. She willneverbe forgiven.
Vivi takes a deep breath. A part of her agrees that Marissa deserves little in the way of mercy. She robbed Vivi of the chance to watch her children grow up, meet her grandchildren, write more books, swim in the ocean, eat a tomato sandwich on perfectly toasted Portuguese bread, to meet a new man, make love to that man, maybe break up, maybe get married again. Vivi would never again clink her wineglass against Savannah’s at the end of a long week, she would never again fall asleep while reading or take an outdoor shower or laugh at a commercial during the Super Bowl or marvel at a sunset.
“And as if that weren’t egregious enough!” Willa says. “She drove off! She plowed her Jeep into the Bathtub and lied to my husband in an attempt to cover her tracks. Then she tried to pin it on Cruz!”
“She hung out at our house all summer long as though nothing was wrong,” Carson says. “She made a Bakewell tart like she was Mary freaking Berry come to the rescue! She’s…a completesociopath!”
“She sat with us at Grammy’s birthday dinner and none of us were any the wiser,” Willa says. “The murderer wasat our table.”
“It was also Peter Bridgeman’s fault,” Carson says. “Sending out that picture of Leo and Cruz. Girl, who does that? Whocares?It’s 2021!”
“I’m going to choose to believe that Marissa hadn’t seen the photograph when she hit Mom. She was driving too fast because she wanted to get to the house to talk to Leo and she checked the text because she thought it was from Leo. It could have been from her mother or her sister or Verizon. I don’t think we can pin this on Peter.”
“But what if Peter knew about me and Zach?” Carson says. “What if that’s why he was trying to gotcha Leo? Because he held a grudge against me. Against our family.”
“Marissa said Peter has had a crush on her since elementary school,” Willa says. “I’m sure he wanted to show Marissa the picture because he wanted her for himself. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
Carson gnaws her bottom lip. “I want her to go to prison.”
“Oh, me too,” Willa says. “But I can’t help thinking…”
“What?”
“That after all is said and done, Mom would forgive her,” Carson says.
They both sit quietly for a second.
