Now You See Her Part 9

I swallowed involuntarily, my hand shaking. I felt like throwing up, like I'd been kicked in the stomach.

Coffee shot out of the lid of my cup, scalding my jittery hand, but I couldn't feel it.

The date seemed to make sense. It was Peter. I could feel it in the marrow of my pregnant bones.

He'd had a wife? A wife who'd been killed?! Why didn't he tell me that he was a widower? I wondered. He did tell me I was the first girl that he'd ever dated for more than a month. He'd also told me he was from New York, not Boston. Which I'd accepted at face value despite the suspicious fact that he was a die-hard Red Sox fan.

"No!" I actually said out loud to the screen.

I wiped sweat from my face with my wrist. When I turned, Alice was looking at me funny from her desk.

"Everything OK in there?" she said.

"Fine," I lied again as I looked back at the screen.

So what? I thought angrily. What did this prove? It was just a coincidence. Someone named Peter Fournier was a cop in Boston. There were lots of Peter Fourniers in the world. It was just a coincidence.

What was I doing here anyway? I wondered. Wasting my time was what. Driving myself crazy was what.

I stood and grabbed my barely touched coffee. I needed to get out of this cramped concrete box and go for a jog on the beach or a long swim. Maybe in the afternoon, I'd head down to one of the wharves in Old Town and buy some freshly caught wahoo in case Peter and Morley came back empty.

Maybe he was doing something he shouldn't be doing, but we could deal with that. Checking up on him like I was Nancy Drew was too out there. Screw Bjorn and his cryptic bulls.h.i.t. My trip to Crazyland was over. I needed to go where I belonged. Home. Now.

As I stood, I couldn't help but remember the second link on the screen.

I clicked on the back arrow and stared at the Enter b.u.t.ton as if it meant "Self-destruct." Then I put my coffee back down and clicked.

"Come on already," I said, nervously flicking the coffee's plastic lid with my thumb as I waited for the screen to change.

There was a hum, and then my stomach dropped as the black screen turned to white. The first thing that appeared as I began to scroll down to the article was a smudgy photograph.

I stopped scrolling, my whole hand trembling on the mouse.

It was Peter.

He was a few years younger, and he was wearing a Boston PD uniform.

As I looked into Peter's eyes, it felt like my throat was slowly closing, garden hose to coin wrapper to bar straw.

I finally closed my eyes to make the picture and the rest of my rapidly disintegrating world disappear.

Unbelievable, I thought, keeping my eyes closed.

I a.s.sumed I'd calm down after a while, but it wasn't happening. The office chair beneath me suddenly felt wobbly, as if all the screws had been removed.

I'd thought that I'd grown up on the day my father died, but I'd been wrong. Sitting there in front of the picture of my husband that proved he was a liar, I felt my heart concede and my head take over.

I shook my head at my wedding and engagement rings. I had to get it out of the sand. I needed to wake the h.e.l.l up.

There was no more denying it. Pictures didn't lie.

Fact: Peter was from Boston, not New York.

Fact: Peter had been married before to a woman who was killed.

Fact: Peter had been lying to me from day one.

Fact: I was in some deep s.h.i.t.

It felt like time stopped as I glanced down and spotted the new headline beside Peter's picture. My eyes ran over the five words, and it felt like the rapidly spinning world had stopped dead right there under the public library fluorescents.

I didn't think that it could get worse.

G.o.d, was I so very wrong.

"Cop Questioned in Wife's Death," the headline said.

Chapter 33.

Boston, MA COP QUESTIONED IN WIFE'S DEATH Authorities in the Boston Police Department have questioned the husband of the woman killed in a delicatessen holdup last month. Peter Fournier, who is a rookie patrolman on the Boston Police force, refused to answer reporters' questions as he left headquarters with his lawyer late last night.

Twenty-year-old Amanda Fournier was killed by multiple shotgun blasts during the midday holdup on September 21. A receptionist in a pediatrician's office on Crescent Street, she entered Jake's Deli next door a little before noon. Witnesses say a masked a.s.sailant entered behind her and that she was shot several times when she hesitated to give up her bag. No one else was injured.

The autopsy report released from the Suffolk County coroner's office confirmed that Mrs. Fournier was pregnant.

Detectives would not reveal if the questioning was routine or not. But a source close to the investigation described the events surrounding the murder as "suspicious."

Neighbors of the couple described the Fourniers as close and were shocked to learn of the questioning of Mr. Fournier. As were Mr. Fournier's fellow Boston PD officers, one of whom described the twenty-six-year-old rookie and former U.S. Army Ranger as extremely competent and "a cop's cop."

I stopped reading. The world turned gray, as if a dimmer switch had been hit. I blinked, unable to breathe, waiting for my heart to start beating again.

I noticed that there was another photograph at the bottom of the article. I shuddered as I looked at the picture of the young woman above the "Amanda Fournier" caption.

The young woman had a lot of high hair and some dark eye shadow. I realized two things about this photograph simultaneously. It looked like the girl's high school picture, and she looked a h.e.l.l of a lot like me!

I thought about what Peter had said when I confronted him about his double shift.

Then I... looked into your eyes, and I haven't been inside a church since my Communion, Jeanine, but it felt holy... Like G.o.d sent an angel down from heaven.

I'll bet! I thought as I sat there, unable to pry my eyes away from the photo of the deceased young woman on the screen.

I didn't actually remember printing the article or leaving the library. Or starting my Vespa, for that matter. The first place I found myself after my shock subsided enough for me to form a thought was the main post office on Whitehead Street.

A Coppertone-colored b.u.m making a straw hat on the curb glanced up as I swerved to a dust-raising stop. There was a pay phone inside the post office, I remembered. It was inside a dark, old-fashioned phone booth with a door that closed, like a confessional. I had actually called my college from this secluded booth to tell them I wasn't coming back.

That was exactly what I needed now, I realized. Privacy, darkness, confession.

I thought of another headline as I entered the post office, like a movie zombie.

"Cop's Wife Goes Nuts."

Chapter 34.

AS IF IN A TRANCE, I pushed into the post office and fished out a bunch of quarters. I collapsed in the circa 1930s phone booth in the corner and closed its folding door behind me. Quarters rang off the dusty marble between my feet as I dropped several while dialing 411.

I needed to know what happened after Peter had spoken to the detectives. I needed to go to the primary source, get to the bottom of this.

If it had a bottom.

I got the Boston PD number from information, dialed, and began feeding the phone quarters.

One fact actually made me dry-heave as it kept repeating in my mind like a news crawl across the bottom of a TV screen.

Amanda Fournier was pregnant.

Just like me.

My sweat almost made me drop the receiver as the last quarter bonged home and the phone rang.

"Boston."

"h.e.l.lo. May I speak to Detective... Yorgenson?" I said, reading from the printed article in my hand.

"Hold on," said the gruff Boston cop.

"Yorgenson," said an even gruffer voice a moment later.

"My name's Jeanine Baker," I said with a convincing Southern tw.a.n.g. My current state of insanity apparently was a wonder for my acting chops. "I work for Tony's Bail Bonds down here in Miami. We're doing an employment check on a Peter Fournier. Rumor has it he was involved in some kind of homicide. I got your name from a Boston Globe article. Can you give me some clarity on Mr. Fournier?"

Even at that point, I was hoping for some good news. Even after the lies and strange behavior, I was hoping that there was some reasonable explanation. That it was all one big mistake.

"Miami?" Yorgenson said. "So that's where that virus Fournier turned up. I'd be delighted to give you some clarity on Petey. The son of a b.i.t.c.h killed his wife and got away with it. He should be in a jail cell."

Chapter 35.

I OPENED THE BOOTH DOOR at the dusty post office, unable to breathe. The air had a strange new pressure, a new weight, as if the room had been suddenly filled with water when I wasn't paying attention, and now I was drowning.

"A shock, isn't it?" the cop said. "I know. Pete doesn't look like a psychopath, does he? He's a real charmer, especially with the ladies."

"How can you be so sure he did it?" I said.

"After his wife turned up dead, we went by the book, looked at Pete straight off the bat more to clear him than anything else," Yorgenson said. "But we found out some very interesting things about Mr. Rookie of the Year.

"Like how he had dozens of brutality complaints. Like how he was rumored to love to party with nose candy. Like how he and Amanda had been separated. One of Amanda's friends told us it was because of the baby. He wanted her to abort it. She filed for divorce instead. He'd been hara.s.sing her for months before the shooting. Stalking her at work. Following some of her male coworkers home. 'If I can't have you, n.o.body will,' he told her on several occasions."

Yorgenson paused, letting it all sink in.

"I don't remember if it was in the papers, but Amanda was shot several times. The first time in the abdomen. The first officer to arrive on scene retired soon after on a psychiatric disability pension. I hear he lives in the subway station down at the Government Center now."

Yorgenson chuckled bitterly.

"Think Petey Boy was nervous when we came to question him? Think again. He sat there with those big cold baby blues of his and a s.h.i.t-eating grin, like we were best buddies watching a Sox game at the corner watering hole. Had his alibi information ready and waiting for me. He didn't even bother asking if we had any other leads. The whole thing seemed to amuse him."

"But why didn't he-?" I started.

"Go to jail?" Yorgenson finished. "I ask myself that every day. Cla.s.sic stalker-husband-kills-wife open-and-shut case, right? Wrong. The DA wouldn't prosecute, wouldn't even help us get a search warrant to look for the murder weapon.

"If I had to bet, Peter's uncle, Jack, who was the head of Boston PD's Internal Affairs, used every dirty secret and favor and string he had to squash our case. At least the stink I made got the punk to resign from the force."

I closed my eyes, my forehead banging against my knees as all the breath escaped my lungs.

"If you ask me-" Yorgenson started.

Then my time had elapsed and the phone went dead.

The phone clicking back into its cradle sounded like a pistol shot in the silence. A bullet right through my brain. I stared down at my hands as they shook in time with the painful thump of my heart.

I wandered outside dazed. Blinking in the sunlight, I felt weary, drained, like I'd just completed a stint of hard labor. The sun-blasted steps and sidewalk were empty. The George Hamilton look-alike b.u.m who'd been weaving palm frond hats was long gone.

What a coincidence, I thought, glancing up into the painfully blue sky. So was my mind.

I left my moped where it was and decided to walk. I headed south past a construction site where a bunch of black and Mexican laborers sat in the shade of a king palm on a metal tool cart, staring blatantly, silently, and rapaciously. Usually I was nervous about such scenes, but that morning, I stared back defiantly, daring them to whistle, to say something to me, to set me off.

Where was I going? I wondered as I made a turn and wandered down a picket fencelined street. I didn't have a home anymore. I'd never had one, in fact.

How stupid could a person be? I thought. Red flag after red flag had been raised, and I'd pushed them aside time and time again. It was over. I'd been duped, scammed, fleeced. The strangest and by far the worst part of all was that I was the one who'd conned myself.

Peter wasn't my best friend, wasn't the love of my life. I thought about the happy life of ease and suntan lotion on the deck of Peter's Stingray I'd been envisioning less than twenty-four hours ago, and I started laughing. Instead of tanning myself topside, I was in a hole as black and deep as they come, and I had no idea how to get out of it.

It was a rabbit hole, I realized as I walked down the sunlit street, skating along the edge of my sanity. And I was Alice. Peter was the White Rabbit. Who had Elena been? The Queen of Hearts, I thought. And off went her head.