I spent the next few days looking into whether Rollie McMahon had actually killed himself.
I searched for whatever obits and follow-up news stories I could find. I found a family Web page on bereavement.com and scanned the postings—mostly stunned friends and relatives who couldn’t believe what had happened, testimonials from outsiders who had gone through something similar. I even thought for a second about going to the funeral. Then I decided, on the chance that there was any truth to what I feared, that this was the last place I should be. I didn’t know who might be there as well. Checking it out. While nothing I found contradicted Rollie’s death as being any more than it appeared—a sudden, unforeseen tragedy—the complete bewilderment of those closest to him, the fact that no motive had emerged—no depression, no financial reversal—coupled with what only I knew that connected him to what went on at Kelty’s accident, did nothing to calm my own fears that someone looking for that money had found their way to him.
The only thing keeping me together was that there was no way anyone could get from him to me.
Over the next few days I did my best to get my life back to normal. I went on that second interview—which went well, I thought, though I was told there were several candidates under consideration. I made an appointment for Brandon at the neurologist’s. We even went to the circus at the Westchester County Center in White Plains on Thursday night.
Which was what we were on our way home from, he in a red clown’s cap and greasepaint, stuffed with cotton candy and twirling around one of those green-and-red plastic lights. Still laughing about how the elephants had stood up on their hind legs and circled around when the pretty trainer gal was being held captive by a lion.
“It was like, you mean . . . me?” Brandon said, mugging a funny, wide-eyed face like the poor elephant in the skit.
“Not much of a hero,” I played along. “Remind me never to call in an elephant if we’re ever in danger.”
“We don’t exactly have an elephant, Mom,” Brandon said. “Only Remi.”
“Yeah. And all she’d do is lick to death anyone who wanted to harm us.”
He kept laughing. It was nice to see him happy and enthusiastic like any regular kid. I wished it happened more.
We pulled into our driveway and I opened the garage with the remote. “You go in and get ready for bed. It’s still a school night, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“And send Remi out. I’ll bring out the trash.”
It was a Thursday, recycling night. Elena usually took care of it before she left, but she’d had to go home early to take her son to the doctor, so I lugged the two bins of newspapers and bottles and cans up to the end of the driveway as Remi shot out to pee.
We had two acres at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house next to us was barely visible, down the hill and around a curve. Jim had developed the entire street off Whippoorwill Road—six homes, high-ceilinged, lots of glass and windows, with large family rooms and designer kitchens in a neoclassic style.
Remi ran up to say hello. We had an electric fence and she was trained not to go beyond the boundaries.
“Do your business,” I exhorted her. She squatted down on the grass in the way she always did to tinkle. “Good girl!” She gave the mandatory barks at some imaginary foe in the woods. This time she did it more than usual. Must be something out there, maybe a deer. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”
We went back in through the open garage and the kitchen. I threw my bag and coat across a chair at the kitchen table, took out a tea bag and some calcium and magnesium I took at night.
I noticed the doggie fence we used to confine Remi to the kitchen was up. I didn’t recall putting it up before we left. Then I almost stepped in a pee on the Mexican tile floor. “Damn. Remi—bad girl!” It was strange; she almost never made mistakes like that. We’d only been away a couple of hours.
Her ears went back apologetically and she slinked into a corner. Blotting it up, I had the strangest sense that something wasn’t right. I looked around. The door to an antique hutch where I kept my china was open.
And my iPad, which I was pretty sure I had left on the island before we went out, suddenly wasn’t there.
Then I noticed an old majolica plate on the floor in pieces, and another, now just a hole on the shelf, that was missing.
Someone had been in here.
I stood up cautiously at first in disbelief, then with a feeling of fear beating in my chest. My first thought went to Brandon.
“Brandon!” I called. He didn’t answer. “Brandon!” I yelled again. He was probably already upstairs.
I hurried through the dining room and into the foyer, where I almost ran into him. He was in front of the stairs, strangely calm, but with his eyes wide and fixed on the living room.
“Someone’s been here, Mommy.”