The Bullet Read online

  My breath caught. So strange to hear my name, rising up from pages drafted decades ago, by two people I had loved and then forgotten.

  I had Jessica read my father’s entire will out loud, down the phone line. Three details stood out. The first was the name of the executor of my parents’ estate. The person they had entrusted to carry out their wishes. They had both named the same man: Mr. Everett A. Sutherland, of Charlotte, North Carolina. I had never heard of him.

  The second was a savings account number.

  The third, intriguingly, was a reference to a safe-deposit box.

  Both the box and the savings account were held somewhere called Trust Company of Georgia.

  “Trust Company?” I asked. “Is it headquartered in Atlanta?”

  “It was. Come to think of it, maybe it still is. But it’s like all the big Southern banks. Lots of mergers and name changes over the years. I did some research, right before I called you. Trust Company of Georgia merged with a Florida bank back in 1985. Then they acquired a bank in Tennessee, and then other assets. They all consolidated, changed their names to SunTrust in the mid-1990s.”

  “Oh, we have SunTrust banks here in Washington. There’s one inside Safeway. My grocery store.” I tried to clamp down my excitement. “I wonder—I guess we can just call them, right? Find whoever would know where old records are kept, for dormant accounts.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how complicated that process is. I’m guessing they’ll need to see the wills, and maybe your parents’ death certificates, and any other documents we can dig out. As for the safe-deposit box . . . that’s interesting. I don’t know what physically would have happened to it, after thirty-four years of inactivity. Like, whether the bank would be required to hang on to it, or what.”

  “No idea. I’ll make a call to SunTrust. See what I can ferret out.”

  “Oh, I can do that. I’m having fun.” Jessica was breathing faster, as if she had started walking. “I’ve got to race back to my office. Show my face, since this has been, like, the longest lunch break ever. Tonight, though, I’ll nose around. See what I can find out about this Mr. Sutherland. The executor.”

  But I was starting to question the wisdom of our arrangement. “Thanks for the offer. You’ve been amazing. Really. But I’m thinking I should take it from here.”

  “Why?” She sounded hurt.

  “Because you’re a journalist, and I seem to keep ending up a story in your newspaper.”

  “But that’s Leland’s doing! You’re paying me off the books—”

  “I know, but what if you dig up something newsworthy? What if—I mean, this is incredibly unlikely—but what if you discovered that my parents left me a million dollars? Wouldn’t you have an ethical obligation to report that to Leland?”

  “As you say, that’s incredibly unlikely.”

  “But you’re a terrific researcher, and I’m betting you dig up something. And whatever it is—whatever is out there to be found—I don’t want it in the paper anymore. Why don’t you e-mail me copies of everything you’ve turned up? And tell you what,” I teased her. “If I stumble into a fortune of a million dollars, I’ll split it with you.”

  • • •

  AS I WAS closing my bedroom curtains that night, a car caught my eye. A compact gray car, parked diagonally across the street from my house.

  Nothing remarkable about that, other than I’d never seen it before. I knew most of my neighbors’ vehicles by sight, and we lived far enough up the hill from Georgetown’s restaurants and shops that few tourists parked on the block.

  Inside the car, the outline of his head lit by the tiny screen of his cell phone, sat a man. Again, nothing remarkable there. He could be waiting for someone. Or killing time until he had to be somewhere. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have given him a second thought. But Beasley had spooked me. I went back downstairs and double-checked the locks on my doors and windows, before crawling into bed to read.

  Around eleven, when I rose to turn off the lights, I peeked out.

  The gray car was still there.

  Inside, the man was still sitting. His phone was switched off now and I could make out no distinguishing features other than a head of dark hair. I could not see his eyes. Only that his face, a pale smear beneath the streetlights, had been turned in the direction of my front door all evening long.

  Twenty-seven

  * * *

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

  In the morning I was awakened by an insistent knocking.

  I ignored it.

  It came again.

  I opened an eye. The sun was up. My bedside clock read 7:49. Too early for a package to be delivered. Definitely too early for a friend to stop by. Who then? Beasley’s admonition to be careful ran through my mind.

  Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.

  I pushed back the covers and padded to the window, cracked the curtains, and squinted down. No. Surely not. I rubbed my eyes. Madame Aubuchon was standing on my front step. She was alone, and at her feet rested what appeared to be a large pot. On her hands she wore chunky, garishly colored gloves.

  She must have sensed me staring, for she looked up, shielded her eyes from the sun, and waved. I glanced across the street. The gray car was gone.

  When I opened the door, she hoisted the pot and held it out in front of her, stooping slightly against its weight. Steam curled from under the shiny lid. The gloves were not gloves at all, but oversize, crudely knitted, green-and-purple oven mitts. They clashed against the soft rose silk of her suit.

  “Hélène?” What on earth?

  “Bonjour, Caroline. Ça va?” Are you well? “Here, take this.” She thrust the pot at me.

  I tried to lift it from her outstretched arms, but pain shot through my right wrist.

  She noticed me blanch. “Ah, je m’excuse. Elle est où, ta cuisine?”

  She marched past me toward the kitchen. I trailed behind. I had not expected my premonition to come true quite this quickly. Here I was, groggy and rumpled and still in my nightgown, and here was Madame Aubuchon, charging into my kitchen, dressed as if she were headed next to high tea at the Ritz.

  “You can keep the pot,” she was saying. “But my grandsons made these.” She tucked the cartoon pot holders away into a Cartier bag.

  “Hélène.” I pointed at the humongous pot now resting on my stove. “What is this?”

  “Bouillon de poulet.” Chicken soup. “Properly made, with plenty of garlic and white wine. It needs to cool. Do you have Tupperware?” Without asking permission, she opened a cupboard, peered inside.

  I nodded, mute. I have spoken French as fluently as English since high school. More than half my life. But it was so bizarre, the sight of her rooting around my cabinets in search of stackable, plastic bowls, that words failed me in both languages.

  “J’en ai fait une quantité énorme”—I made a huge batch—“so you would have enough to freeze and warm every day. While you rebuild your strength.” She banged shut a cupboard door, apparently abandoning the Tupperware quest, and studied me. “Caroline, forgive me, but you look dreadful.”

  “Je dormais,” I protested. “I was sleeping.”

  “It’s important to keep up your routine,” she scolded. “Do your hair, put on your makeup. Get out of the house. It helps when you’re depressed.”

  “I’m not depressed.” Not that it would be any of her business if I were. “And I’ll get dressed in a minute. It’s barely eight o’clock.” Harsh morning light slanted through the window above the sink. The scent of garlic mixed with chicken grease filled the air between us. It must have been seeping into the curtains, the dish towels, my hair. She was right about one thing: I would need both a shower and a generous spritz of perfume before I would be fit to leave the house.

  My manners kicked in. “You’re thoughtful to drop by. Merci bien
, thanks so much, for the soup. Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  “Non, merci. I’m running late. But allow me to make one other suggestion.”

  It was tempting to point out that she had forfeited the right to make suggestions for the rest of the semester, but I held my tongue.

  “Paris,” said Madame Aubuchon. “Once you’re well enough to travel, you should go to Paris. A change of scene would do you good, don’t you think? You may use my apartment.”

  “That’s very kind. I couldn’t possibly accept.”

  “Pourquoi pas? Don’t be so damn polite. Jean-Pierre and I won’t get there again until spring. It’s near the Bois de Boulogne, dans le seizième.”

  Of course it was. Paris’s sixteenth arrondissement is where people live when they have plenty of money and no interest in being hip. It’s the equivalent of the Upper East Side in New York, or Mayfair in London.

  She air-kissed my cheeks twice and turned to leave. “The next time I stop by—”

  I bit my lip to avoid groaning out loud. The next time?

  “—I’ll bring you a set of keys. Use them or not, as you wish.”

  • • •

  “I BROUGHT EXTRA,” said Tony, barreling through my front door with his tie flung over his shoulder and four six-packs of beer under his arms.

  For the second time today, I stood aside and watched someone cart provisions into my house.

  “I know it’ll be tough for you to get to the store after the surgery,” my brother called over his shoulder. “This way you’re fully stocked.”

  I followed him into the kitchen. “Um, thanks. But I don’t drink beer.”

  “Yeah, I know. One of many areas in which you do persist in demonstrating bad taste.” He yanked open my refrigerator door and began whipping bottles of Brooklyn lager out of their cardboard carriers, then dumping them into the empty produce drawers. “These aren’t for you, though. They’re for Martin and me. So we’ll have something decent to drink when we come visit you in your sickbed.”

  I burst out laughing. “How considerate.”

  “Don’t mention it. You can pay me back later.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “I know. My chivalry knows no limits. I was also thinking . . . ugh.” Tony inhaled, wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What are you doing in here, Sis? Warding off vampires? Your house reeks of garlic.”

  “Damn it.” I lit another scented candle. I’d spent half an hour this morning digging out Tupperware and Ziploc bags and transferring the contents of Madame Aubuchon’s enormous vat, ladle by ladle, into my freezer. There was enough soup to last me weeks. “Somehow I’ve got to get rid of that smell before tonight.”

  “Why? What’s happening tonight?”

  “I’ve got a date. I’m cooking.”

  My brother heaved himself up to perch on my countertop and sniffed again. “I hope that’s not what’s for dinner.”

  I glowered at him. “Actually, I’m serving steaks. I bought two.”

  “Hint taken. Don’t worry, I’ll scram.” He sat swinging his legs, rubbing scuff marks from the heels of his black dress shoes onto the pale wood of my cabinet door. He knew this drove me crazy. He knew that I would leap to scrub off the marks the minute he exited the room. He also knew I would never give him the satisfaction of asking him to stop. I pointedly fixed my eyes on the ceiling, away from his feet. He pointedly kicked faster. Honestly, sometimes we behave exactly as if we were still ten years old.

  “Anyway.” Kick. Kick. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine. Fabulous.”

  “Seriously.” The kicking slowed. “You’ve had a hellish week.”

  I blew the hair out of my eyes. “That I certainly have.”

  “The surgery is a definite go? One week from today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sis. Anything I can do to help?”

  I met his gaze. There was no longer any trace of mischief, nothing but love in his eyes.

  “I don’t know. I may need your help eventually with some of the crazy stuff I turned up in Georgia. I’m not quite sure where things are going to end up.”

  “What things? What crazy stuff?”

  I had not yet confided in my family that the police were reopening their inquiry into Boone and Sadie Rawson’s murders. There seemed no point in prompting alarm, when it would likely come to nothing. I had resolved to follow Beasley’s advice: lie low, don’t get my hopes up, let the investigation run its course.

  I waved my hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. I think the key thing for the moment will be to get this operation over with, and then to get well. Knock on wood.” I glanced around, spotted a wooden salad bowl, rapped it twice for luck. “And after that I need to keep busy. I’m thinking I’ll write a book.”

  “Why not.”

  “I should already have one under my belt, at this point in an academic career. If I ever want to get tenure. I wrote a paper this fall, on the politics of divorce in working-class, post-Napoleonic France. It was well received. I could easily expand it.”

  He scratched the stubble on his cheeks. The glint was back in his eye.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing. I mean, obviously, the world’s been waiting for that book. I’m thinking huge initial print run—”

  “The intended audience would be other academics, you cretin. I didn’t say it would be a page-turner.”

  “No, no, don’t undersell yourself. That’s got bestseller written all over it.”

  I threw a tea towel at him. “You are such an obnoxious ass.”

  He grinned, hopped off the counter, and wrapped me in a fierce hug. Then, without prompting, he grabbed a wad of paper towels and kneeled to polish the marks off the cabinet door.

  I was watching him in amusement when the doorbell rang.

  • • •

  TONY AND WILL Zartman got on like a house on fire.

  This irritated but did not surprise me.

  I perched on the end of the sofa, sipping white wine, while my brother and Will clinked beers and conversed in a language as impenetrable to me as Swahili.

  “I can’t help thinking the DH situation is going to screw the Sox,” said Tony, his eyes glued to the television screen. “Because if they want to use Ortiz, they’ll have to take Napoli out of the lineup.”

  “That’ll hurt,” Will agreed. “And getting Allen Craig back, that could be huge for the Cards.”

  “I don’t know, do you really think he’s their best clutch?”

  “Are you kidding? Craig on a good day—”

  “What’s the DH situation?” I cut in. If I was going to have to sit through this, I was damn well going to participate.

  “Designated hitter,” said Will, patting my leg.

  “And what’s that?”

  “What’s what? A designated hitter?” His expression suggested this was the equivalent of asking what was a sandwich. Or what was the sky. As in, a concept so basic he’d never had to explain it before.

  He turned to Tony. “I promised to teach her about baseball, how the rules work and everything.”

  “Mm-hmm. Good luck with that.” My brother smiled in a way that conveyed he grasped the futility of Will’s project at a level Will had not even begun to understand.

  I ignored them. We sat watching. After a minute, I ventured, “What’s with the Boston players? Why do they all have beards?”

  “Tribal thing. Team solidarity,” said Will.

  Tony nodded. “I read that Napoli’s is so bushy now, he has to use shampoo and conditioner on it.”

  “Whereas the Cards pitchers might be too young to grow facial hair.”

  “Ha! Probably true. But could you believe the fastballs that Wacha was throwing the other night?”

  And they were off again,
yammering away in Swahili.

  As the third inning wound down, after I had fixed my brother with an evil stare and made a pointed comment about how both steaks, all two of them, were nearly ready, Tony finally stood to leave.

  At the front door he leaned close and whispered, “Great guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not your type, though. He’s disturbingly . . . normal.”

  “Shhh, you’re just worried you won’t have an excuse to bust out your ‘Sprockets’ routine at Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, I’ll find a way to work it in.” Tony studied my face. “Look, I have no interest in your sex life. But is he likely to stay over tonight?”

  “Tony! That is so none of your—”

  “I’m just thinking you shouldn’t be alone. If he’s not staying, I could swing back by later tonight, give you a lift up to Mom and Dad’s.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I’m worried about you. I can tell you’re in pain. And I didn’t like that reference you made earlier, to ‘crazy stuff ’ you turned up in Georgia. Tomorrow you’re going to tell me what you meant by that.”

  Despite myself, I glanced over my brother’s shoulder. The street was quiet. No gray car in sight. “Sure. I promise. I need to get back inside.”

  “So?” Tony inclined his head toward where Will sat in my living room.

  “For God’s sake. He’s staying. Now good night, you.” I shoved my brother out the door. Smoothed my hair. It occurred to me that I must really like Will; I couldn’t wait to get back to the sofa, snuggle in, and listen to him hold forth about baseball.

  But in my absence, Will’s mood seemed to have darkened.

  At first, I assumed he was annoyed that I’d stood whispering with Tony on the front step for so long. Will shook his head no when I dangled another beer. He didn’t lift a finger to help as I made up plates and carried them through from the kitchen. I plopped down beside him. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” He fake-smiled at me, then returned to staring at the screen.