AT FIRST IT NEVER would’ve occurred to me Suzanne could be involved. Not in my wildest nightmares would I think such a thing. She was his wife. He loved that girl with all his heart. She was like our second daughter.
Now maybe if I could go back in time and see her at the funeral, or talking to the television reporters, I’d suspect something. But at the time you don’t think about that. You’re so completely caught up in your grief you don’t even know if it’s sunny or it’s raining. So how would you notice if your daughter-in-law who’s standing there with her face in her handkerchief might really be a murderer?
At the time, we just all stayed close together. I felt as long as people were around that loved him, he wasn’t completely gone, you know? If it was a big enough crowd, it could seem like he just stepped out of the room for a minute. The times that were hardest were nights, when it was just Joey and I alone, lying in bed holding on to each other and crying so hard you could feel the mattress shake. Those were the worst.
You got through the days, who knows how? I mean at first there was just so much to attend to—the funeral, the police, friends coming by the restaurant, the newspapers. You didn’t have time to think, and that was good. I got dressed in the morning, put on my makeup, fixed breakfast. But I don’t remember any of it.
It was later, after things quieted down some, that I started to fall apart. They hadn’t arrested the boys yet, the investigation seemed like it was at a standstill. I’d go out in the world, and see people going about their business like nothing was wrong, everything was the same as it ever was. That’s what drove me crazy. When that happened, sometimes I’d call up Suzanne, say why don’t you come on over, have a cup of tea?
I just didn’t want to be alone. I’d take out the photo albums, write thank-you notes to people that sent us flowers, polish silver, whatever. Having the restaurant helped. It kept you busy.
But I remember this one afternoon. She was over at the house helping me clean out one of my closets. I was getting rid of a lot of Larry’s things, and I thought she might be interested in having some.
There was this old school jacket he had from his basketball days. Larry loved that jacket. More than one girl tried to get their hands on it. But there was never anyone he felt that way about.
So there we were reliving all these old memories. And suddenly I open a drawer and there’s the jacket. “This should be yours,” I said to her. “Why don’t you try it on and see how it looks?”
She was wearing a heavy sweater of some sort, so she took that off first. There we were up in my son’s old room, Suzanne standing there in her bra and skirt. Which shouldn’t be any big deal—we were both women for goodness sake.
Except that’s when I spotted it. I mean at first I thought she just had a leaf or something stuck to her chest and I was going to brush it off. But no, it was a tattoo. Shaped like a rose. Right over her left breast. Can you beat that?
Don’t ask me why, but I felt a chill come over me, like all of a sudden I knew she wasn’t the person I’d always thought. All this time she’d been hiding that, what else was she hiding?
I didn’t say a word. Neither did she. But we both knew I’d seen it. And that was the first moment I began to wonder. What if she had something to do with Larry’s murder?
I never trusted her after that. Even though I let her take the jacket.