“You arrived last Thursday night,” I continue, “not Friday. You got here the night of your husband’s press conference at Four Cs. Maybe you thought you’d surprise him, take him out for a nice dinner.”
She stares at me, her eyes wide.
“But he’s not the one who got the surprise, is he? Maybe you parked here, in the garage, and recognized her car. Or maybe you stopped in the driveway, went inside, and heard them. Either way, you caught them again.”
Honey stares at the floor, says nothing.
“So you waited.” I point to a wooden staircase leading to the second story, then up to the rafters. “Those dormers, they accommodate a spare bedroom, don’t they? Maybe even a small in-law apartment?”
She nods and tears up all at once.
“You waited there, probably, until morning. My guess is you didn’t sleep.”
She bites her bottom lip and her tears spill over.
“You didn’t plan it. You’d never plan such a thing.”
She shakes her head.
“But when you saw her the next morning—young, full of promise, and radiant after a night with your husband—something snapped. You wanted to hurt her. You wanted her to ache every bit as much as you did.”
The door at the top of the staircase opens. Abby emerges, walks down a couple of steps and stands still, staring at us. She’s obviously been listening; her face is ashen. I won’t stop, though. I can’t now.
“So you reached for something—anything—you could use to make her hurt. It turned out to be the shovel. And in a split second, without any forethought, you swung. Once.”
“With a strength you never knew you had.”
The words are calm, steady. And they’re coming from Abby’s mouth.
I’m uncertain for a moment, unsure what to make of her comment. And then—in a heartbeat—I’m not. Honey Kendrick doesn’t know the details. Abby does.
Her mother is a step ahead of me. “Abigail,” she says, her voice trembling, “be quiet this instant.”
Abigail doesn’t seem to hear. “And then,” she says, “even though you’ve never seen a dead person before, you know you’re looking at one. You’re as sure of it as you are of your own name.”
She walks toward us, down the stairs, her cheeks tear-streaked. “And then you panic—like you’ve never panicked before. You can’t move at first, you’re paralyzed, and then you can’t stop moving. You have to get rid of her somehow. Her and her car. And her stupid car is so small she won’t fit in the trunk. But you can’t drive down the road with her in the passenger seat. It’s starting to get light. And she’s a mess.”
“Abigail, you’re talking nonsense,” her mother tries. She’s wrong, though. Abigail is telling the truth. It’s written on her face.
She stops at the bottom of the steps, looks at her mother, then at me. “So you take out the spare,” she says.
She’s on autopilot. Her mother can’t change the course. No one can.
“And somehow you get her into the trunk, then, but it still won’t shut. So you find a piece of clothesline and you tie it.”
“Abigail, please,” Honey says, “stop.” Her words are flat, though. Even she knows it’s too late. Abigail can’t stop.
“And then you dump her into Pleasant Bay because she’s already dead and there’s nothing you can do about it. And you know somebody’s going to find her, but you feel sort of lucky because the tide’s going out, so maybe it’ll take a while, and all you really want is time to think.”
Honey backs up to the wall, slumps against it.
“And then you leave the stupid car in the woods. And you know somebody’s going to find that, too, but you don’t know what else to do.”
Abby pauses to breathe. She isn’t pale anymore; she’s flushed from the base of her neck up, dark red blotches on both cheeks.
“And then your father gets arrested for it,” she says. “And at first you think that’s not so bad, because he didn’t do it, so he’ll get off.”
If only it were that simple.
“But then he goes and pleads guilty and you don’t know what’s going on. Until he stares at your mom that way. And then you do.”
She looks me square in the eyes and waits. She seems to think I might say it for her. She’s wrong. I won’t.
“He thinks she did it,” she says at last, pointing at her mother. “Just what you thought. And he’s going to take the blame for her, go to jail for her, give up everything for her. That’s how much he loves her. More than he ever loved that girl.” She points at the empty parking spot, as if Michelle is still here.
And she is. For the Kendricks, all three of them, Michelle Forrester will always be here.
Chapter 30
A Week Later
Harry’s second-floor apartment is empty, the fireplace cold. I’m surprised at first, but after a moment I realize I shouldn’t be. I have a pretty good hunch where he’s gone on this Christmas morning. I back the Thunderbird out of the office driveway and head toward St. Veronica’s in the steadily falling snow. The day’s first light is on the horizon, muted by silver-gray cloud cover.
When Luke was little, he couldn’t bolt out of his bed fast enough on Christmas mornings. He’d burst into my bedroom well before dawn, Danny Boy hot on his heels, the two of them panting with excitement. They’d both tug at my blankets and pajamas until I opened my reluctant eyes, and then Luke would complain—and Danny Boy would whimper—about the unbearable length of time it took for me to find my robe and negotiate the stairs. Those days are long gone, of course. Luke and Danny Boy were sound asleep—both snoring—when I left our Windmill Lane cottage twenty minutes ago. Sleeping in is a luxury Luke will enjoy only for another couple of weeks. Classes resume in early January.
Abby Kendrick’s won’t, though. She may return to the hallowed halls of Harvard someday—her father has vowed she will—but it won’t be anytime soon. Geraldine Schilling offered her a better-than decent plea bargain—a reduction to involuntary manslaughter, a dismissal of the obstruction of justice charges, and a recommendation to the court for leniency in sentencing—all in exchange for a full written confession, and all with the blessings of the Forrester family. On the sage advice of veteran defender Bert Saunders, Abby took it.
She was arraigned and sentenced in a solitary proceeding—yet another media feeding frenzy—on Wednesday morning, just forty-eight hours after all charges against her father were dismissed. Judge Leon Long took Geraldine’s leniency recommendation to heart. He gave Abby six-to-eight, a decidedly light term under current statutory guidelines. With good behavior and a little luck, she’ll be out in five.
Our system worked for Abby Kendrick—not a claim every criminal defendant can make. It worked in part because our District Attorney recognized a critical fact: Abby’s crime—though undeniably heinous—was born of passion, a circumstance we, as a society, have long recognized as a mitigating factor. It also worked because her case ended up on the docket of Leon Long, a man who carries a hefty dose of compassion into the courtroom—and up to the bench—every day of his working life. And for that she has her father to thank. It’s unlikely Judge Long would have been summoned to serve had the initial arraignee not been the Commonwealth’s senior senator.
Honey headed to San Francisco, to stay with her parents for a while, as soon as the sheriff’s patrol car left the Barnstable County Complex with her only child in the caged backseat. She told her husband to expect the process server on his doorstep—with her Petition for Divorce in hand—within the week. Charles Kendrick says he won’t contest it, and he won’t try to talk her out of it. He doesn’t plan to fight for his long-held seat in the U.S. Senate, either; he simply doesn’t have any fight left in him. The public outcry for his resignation began the day he was charged with Michelle Forrester’s murder. It diminished only slightly when the truth emerged.