Pretty Girls: A Novel Read online

  Helen brushed invisible lint from her skirt.

  Claire tried to summon good memories of her father. She was in college when Helen called to say that he was dead. At the end of his life, her father had been a very sad, very broken man. No one had been surprised when he’d committed suicide.

  Ginny asked, “What’s that missing girl’s name again?”

  “Anna Kilpatrick.”

  The limo slowed as it made the wide turn into the driveway. Helen shifted in her seat to look out the front window. “Is the gate supposed to be open?”

  “I guess the caterers—” Claire didn’t finish the sentence. There were three police cars parked behind the caterers’ van. “Oh, God. What now?”

  A policewoman motioned for the limo to park on the pad down from the main house.

  Helen turned to Claire. “Have you done something?”

  “What?” Claire couldn’t believe the question, but then she thought about the Valium and the Tramadol and the Scotch and her heartless parole officer who’d said Claire’s smart mouth was going to get her in trouble one day, to which Claire had told him that day had come and gone or she wouldn’t have a parole officer.

  Would he really drug-test her on the day of her husband’s funeral?

  “For the love of God.” Helen slid toward the door. “Claire, do something about your expression. You look guilty as hell.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Claire said, resurrecting a whiny tone she hadn’t deployed since the ninth grade.

  “Let me handle this.” Helen pushed open the door. “Is there a problem, Officer?” She was using her librarian voice, low and terse and highly annoyed.

  The cop held up her hand. “You need to step back, lady.”

  “This is private property. I know my rights.”

  “I’m sorry.” Claire edged in front of her mother. No wonder she had a problem with authority. “I’m Claire Scott. This is my house.”

  “Can I see some ID?”

  Helen stamped her foot. “Oh, for Godsakes. Are you really here with three police cars to arrest my daughter on the day she put her husband in the ground?” She threw a hand toward Claire. “Does she look like a criminal?”

  “Mother, it’s all right.” Claire didn’t remind her that technically, she was a criminal. As part of her parole, the police could trespass all they wanted. She opened her purse to look for her wallet. And then she remembered that the Snake Man had taken her wallet.

  Claire saw the tattoo again, the gold-plated fang. The Snake Man’s skin was white, a detail that had startled Claire when she’d relayed it to the detective at the police station. Was it racist to assume that rich white people were only robbed by black or Hispanic gang members, or had Claire listened to too much rap music in spin class? It was the same thinking that had made her conjure the image of a shiny black gun when it was actually a knife being held to Paul’s back. A knife that didn’t even look real, but had still managed to murder her husband.

  The earth started to tremble. Claire felt the vibrations move up from her feet and into her legs.

  “Claire?” Helen said.

  They’d been in Napa a few years ago when an earthquake hit. Claire had been thrown from bed, Paul on top of her. They’d grabbed their shoes but little else as they ran past broken water pipes and shattered glass.

  “Insufficient shear reinforcement mode,” Paul had said, standing in the middle of the crowded, broken street in his boxers and undershirt. “A newer building would have base isolation bearings, or a quake-resistant sill-anchoring system that could buffer the shearing effect.”

  Listening to him drone on about seismic loading was the only thing that had calmed her.

  “Claire?”

  Claire blinked open her eyes. She looked up at her mother, wondering why their faces were so close.

  “You fainted.”

  “I didn’t,” Claire argued, though evidence pointed to the contrary. She was lying on her back in her own driveway. The policewoman was standing over her. Claire tried in vain to think of an insect the woman resembled, but honestly, she just looked overworked and tired.

  The cop said, “Ma’am, just stay there. There’s an ambulance ten minutes out.”

  Claire forced away the image of the paramedics who had rushed down the alley with their gurney in tow, the way they had spent less than a minute examining Paul before shaking their heads.

  Had someone actually said, “He’s gone,” or had Claire said the words herself? Heard the words. Felt the words. Watched her husband go from being a man to being a body.

  Claire asked her mother, “Can you help me up?”

  “Ma’am, don’t sit up,” the cop ordered.

  Helen helped her sit up. “Did you hear what the cop said?”

  “You’re the one who helped me sit up.”

  “Not that. Someone tried to rob the house.”

  “Rob the house?” Claire repeated, because it didn’t make sense. “Why?”

  “I imagine they wanted to steal things.” Helen’s tone was patient, but Claire could tell she was unsettled by the news. “The caterers walked in on the burglars.”

  Burglars. The word sounded antiquated in her mother’s mouth.

  Helen continued, “There was a fight. The bartender was badly hurt.”

  “Tim?” she asked, because she thought knowing the details might make her understand that this had really happened.

  Helen shook her head. “I don’t know his name.”

  Claire looked up at the house. She was feeling disembodied again, drifting in and out of the wake of Paul’s absence.

  And then she thought of the Snake Man and snapped back into the present.

  Claire asked the cop, “There was more than one burglar?”

  “There were three African American males, medium builds, mid-twenties. They were all wearing masks and gloves.”

  Helen had never had much faith in police officers. “With that description, I’m sure you’ll find them in no time.”

  “Mother,” Claire tried, because this wasn’t helping.

  “They were in a silver late-model four-door.” The cop gripped the baton handle on her belt, likely because she longed to use it. “We’ve got a state-wide BOLO on the vehicle.”

  “Young lady, to me a bolo is a garish string tie.” Helen was in full librarian mode again, taking out all the angst that she couldn’t direct toward Claire. “Could you trouble yourself to speak English?”

  Ginny provided, “Be-on-the-look-out. Am I right?” She smiled sweetly at the cop. “I have a color television in my sitting room.”

  Claire said, “I can’t sit in the driveway like this.” Helen grabbed her arm and helped her stand. What would Paul do if he were here? He would take charge. Claire couldn’t do that. She could barely keep her legs underneath her. “Did the burglars take anything?”

  The cop said, “We don’t think so, ma’am, but we need you to walk through with the detectives and check.” She pointed toward a group of men standing by the mudroom door. They were all wearing Columbo trench coats. One of them even had a cigar clenched between his teeth. “They’ll give you a checklist to generate an inventory. You’ll need a thorough report for your insurance company.”

  Claire felt so overwhelmed that she almost laughed. The woman might as well have asked her to catalog the Smithsonian. “I’ve got people coming. I need to make sure the tables are set up. The caterer—”

  “Ma’am,” the cop interrupted, “we can’t let anyone into the house until the scene is cleared.”

  Claire put her fist to her mouth so she wouldn’t tell the cop to stop calling her fucking “ma’am.”

  “Ma’am?” the cop said.

  Claire dropped her fist. There was a car stopped at the bottom of the driveway. Gray Mercedes. Headlights on. Yellow FUNERAL flag hanging out of the window. Another Mercedes slowed to a stop behind it. The funeral procession had finally caught up. What was she going to do? Falling to the ground again seemed like
the simplest solution. And then what? The ambulance. The hospital. The sedatives. Eventually, she would be sent home. Eventually, she would find herself standing in this same place again with the detectives and the inventory and insurance and the bullshit. This was all Paul’s fault. He should be here. He should be taking care of all of this. That was his job.

  Claire Scott was furious at her dead husband for not being there to solve her problems.

  “Honey?” Helen asked.

  “I’m okay.” Claire had realized a long time ago that if you lie with enough conviction, you can usually fool yourself. All that she had to do now was generate a to-do list. That’s what Paul would have done. He had always said there was nothing that a list couldn’t solve. Conquer the details and you conquer the problem. “I’ll go walk the detectives through the house. We’ll need to cancel the wake.” She turned to the limo driver, who’d been discreetly standing to the side. “Can you take my grandmother back to the home, please?” She told the cop, “Please cancel the ambulance. I’m fine. There are over a hundred people on their way here. Unless you want them coming into the house, you need to post someone at the bottom of the driveway to stop them.”

  “Will do.” The cop seemed happy to get away from them. She practically ran down the driveway.

  Claire felt some of her bluster dissipate. She looked at her mother. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “You’re already doing it.” Helen looped her hand through Claire’s arm and walked with her toward the men in trench coats. “Did you hurt your head when you fainted?”

  “No.” Claire felt the back of her head. The bruises from the alley were still tender. Another lump wouldn’t make much of a difference. “Have I ever fainted before?”

  “Not that I know of. You should try to do it in the grass next time. I thought you’d cracked open your noggin’.”

  She squeezed her mother’s arm. “You don’t have to stay here.”

  “I’m not leaving until I know you’re all right.”

  Claire pressed together her lips. There had been a time when her mother had been incapable of being present for anything. “Listen, I know how you feel about the police, but you need to cool it.”

  “Huckleberries,” Helen muttered, her word for incompetent policemen. “You know, it’s occurred to me that I’m just about the only person in our family who hasn’t gone to prison.”

  “Jail, Mother. Prison is for after you’re convicted.”

  “Thank God I didn’t use the wrong word with my book club.”

  “Mrs. Scott?” One of the trench-coated men walked over with his badge in his hand. He reeked of cigar smoke because it wasn’t enough of a cliché to wear a trench coat. “I’m Captain Mayhew, Dunwoody Police Department.”

  “Captain?” Claire asked. The man she’d talked to after Paul’s murder was only a detective. Was a burglary more important than a murder, or were murders so common in the city of Atlanta that they relegated them to detectives?

  “I’m real sorry for your loss.” Mayhew dropped the badge into his coat pocket. His mustache was bushy and untrimmed. Hairs climbed down from his nostrils. “The Congressman asked me to handle this personally.”

  Claire knew who the Congressman was. Johnny Jackson had been Paul’s benefactor almost from the start, awarding him government contracts that should’ve gone to more experienced architects. The man’s early investment had been rewarded over the years. Every time Quinn + Scott was given a new government job, Paul’s personal Amex bill was riddled with charges for chartered planes he never flew in and five-star hotels where he never stayed.

  She took a deep breath and asked, “I’m sorry, Captain. I’m feeling a bit discombobulated. Can you please start from the beginning and tell me what happened?”

  “Yeah, I can imagine with the funeral and all, this is the last thing you want to be dealing with right now. Like I said, my condolences.” Mayhew took his own deep breath, his far more raspy. “We’ve got a nutshell, but we’re still filling in some blanks. You’re not the first person in the county to have this kind of thing happen. We suspect it’s a gang of young males who read the obituaries, find out when the funerals are, then Google Earth the house and figure out whether it’s worth robbing.”

  “Good Lord,” Helen said, “that really is beyond the pale.”

  Mayhew seemed just as outraged. “We think the burglars only had a minute or so before the catering van pulled up. They saw the broken glass from the side door.” He pointed to the glass, which was still scattered on the bluestone steps. “The bartender went inside—probably not the best idea. He took a beating, but he managed to stop the gang from cleaning you out.”

  Claire looked up at the house again. Paul had been drawing variations of the plans since architectural school. The only thing that changed was the amount of money they could spend. Neither one of them had grown up rich. Claire’s father had been a college professor. Paul’s parents had owned a farm. He loved having money because it made him feel secure. Claire loved having it because once you paid for something, no one could ever take it away from you.

  Had she not paid enough for Paul? Had she not worked enough, loved enough, been enough? Is that why she had lost him?

  “Mrs. Scott?”

  “I’m sorry.” Claire didn’t know why she kept apologizing. Paul would’ve cared more about this. He would’ve been outraged by the violation. Their window broken! Burglars rifling their belongings! One of their employees attacked! Claire would’ve been right beside him, just as outraged, but without Paul, she could barely force herself to go through the motions.

  Helen asked, “Can you tell us if the bartender is okay? Tim, was it?”

  “Yeah, Tim.” Mayhew nodded and shrugged at the same time. “Most of the wounds are superficial. They took him to the hospital to stitch him up.”

  Claire felt some of the horror penetrate. Tim had been bartending for them for years. He had a son with autism and an ex-wife he was trying to win back and now he was being stitched up at the hospital because of something horrible that had happened inside her home.

  Helen asked, “But you still need Claire to go through the house to see if the burglars took anything?”

  “Yes, eventually. I know this is really bad timing, but what we need from Mrs. Scott right now is to know where the set-up is for the security cameras.” He pointed to the black globe on the corner of the house. “We’re pretty sure that one got them coming and going.”

  “I’ll take you to it.” Claire didn’t move. They were all staring at her, waiting. There was something else she needed to do. Lots of something elses.

  The list. She felt her brain flip back on like a light switch.

  Claire turned to her mother. “Can you ask the caterers to donate the food to the shelter? And let Tim know we’ll take care of the hospital bill. I’m sure it’s covered under our homeowner’s policy.” Where was the paperwork? Claire didn’t even know who their agent was.

  “Mrs. Scott?” There was another man standing beside Captain Mayhew. He was a few inches taller and dressed slightly better than the rest of the group. His trench coat was nicer, his suit was better tailored, and his face was clean-shaven. His easy manner should’ve put Claire at ease, but there was something about him that felt deeply unsettling, not least of all because he was sporting a nasty-looking black eye.

  The man indicated his bruised eye with a chuckle. “The wife doesn’t like it when I talk back.”

  Helen said, “Domestic violence is so funny.” She noted Claire’s wary expression. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  The black-eyed man tried again. “Sorry, Mrs. Scott. My name is Fred Nolan. Maybe we can talk while you take us to the guts of the security system?”

  He was standing close enough that Claire felt the need to step back. “This way.” She started walking toward the garage.

  “Hold up.” Nolan put his hand on her arm. His thumb pressed against the soft underside of her wrist. “The control
board for the security system is in the garage?”

  Claire had never taken such an instant, visceral dislike to another human being. She looked down at his hand, willing the skin to freeze to the bone.

  Nolan got the message. He released her arm.

  “As I said, it’s this way.”

  Claire suppressed a shudder as she continued walking. Mayhew walked beside her. Nolan followed closely at her heels. Too close. The man wasn’t just unsettling, he was creepy. He looked more like a mobster than a cop, but he was obviously good at his job. Claire hadn’t done anything criminal—at least not lately—but he’d managed to make her feel guilty anyway.

  Nolan said, “Usually all the security stuff is in the main part of the house.”

  “Fascinating,” Claire mumbled. She could feel a headache working into her temples. Maybe the burglary was a godsend. Instead of spending the next four hours entertaining Paul’s mourners, she would spend half an hour with this asshole before she kicked them all out of the house and took a handful of Valium to bed.

  For complicated reasons Paul had tried to explain, all the security mainframes were in the garage, which was a two-story detached structure built in the same style as the house. Paul’s office on the top floor had a kitchenette, two walk-in closets, and a full bathroom. They had laughed about the space being nicer than a hotel if she ever kicked him out of the house.

  “Mrs. Scott, do you mind my asking why the alarm wasn’t on?” This was from Mayhew. He had taken out a notebook and pen. His shoulders were hunched as if someone had asked him to mimic a character from a Raymond Chandler novel.

  Claire said, “I always leave the alarm off for the caterers. The gate was closed.”

  His mustache twitched. “The caterers have the front gate code?”

  “And a key to the main house.”

  “Anyone else have a key?”

  The question struck her as odd, or maybe she was annoyed by the way Fred Nolan was still breathing down her neck. “Why would the burglars break the glass in the door if they had a key?”