What Remains of Me Page 4

  “You’ve been married to his son for fifteen years. You’d think at that point, they’d have accepted you as one of their own.” He swallowed more coffee, eyes fixed on her face as the thumping grew more insistent, the whole machine jumping with it, until it suddenly, mercifully eased into a lower cycle. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I told you. I’m fine.”

  “Okay. When was the last time you spoke to Sterling Marshall?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You ever text him? E-mail? Snail mail?”

  “Not recently.” In her mind, she saw Sterling Marshall’s name in gold embossed letters on thick, creamy stationery. He’d written her in prison once, only once, a long time ago. She remembered his careful handwriting and what he’d told her in the letter. Another drawer flew open . . .

  “Did you speak to Mr. Marshall often? Did your husband?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Can you give me more of an idea than ‘maybe’?”

  “You would have to ask my husband.”

  In the letter, Sterling Marshall had called John McFadden “a dear friend and one of the great directors of our time.” Kelly remembered that phrase as though she were looking at it for the first time. A dear friend. Her stomach clenched up. He had talked about Kelly, how she hadn’t “been in control of her senses” and so he understood. He knew she was sorry. But she wasn’t sorry. She would never be sorry.

  “. . . once a week? Twice a month? Or was it more like a holiday-type thing?”

  The doctor at Carpentia has informed me of your very recent “news.” Another line from that letter, still burned into Kelly’s brain. The quotes around the word news. Want to demean something in one step? Put quotes around it.

  “From what you knew of your father-in-law, would you say he had any enemies?”

  I trust Shane doesn’t know yet. I trust you’ll do the right thing.

  Kelly heard herself say, “Suicide.”

  The detective jumped a little. “Pardon?”

  “The news reports. They said it was suicide.”

  “We haven’t released any official comment to news outlets.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Huh?”

  “Sterling Marshall. What did he say in the note?”

  He exhaled. “I’m not here to talk about what you read on the Web.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “When was the last time you spoke to your father-in-law?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  In the letter, Sterling Marshall had told Kelly that he’d helped Shane to start a photo archive business. He’d promised to keep supporting him, to make sure he’s always taken care of, but only if you do what needs to be done. Underneath the table, Kelly’s fists clenched up.

  “Were you aware that Mr. Marshall owned a gun?”

  She looked at him. “No.”

  “Did you ever see or hear about a gun when you visited him at his house?”

  Kelly opened her mouth, closed it again.

  “Maybe at a family get-together? Did he ever tell your husband about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Owning a gun,” he said.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You’re aware, aren’t you, that your father-in-law was a pretty big antigun activist? You’ve heard of the John McFadden Fund.”

  The washing machine rumbled.

  “I’ve heard,” she said, “of the John McFadden Fund.” She made herself say the name clearly, deliberately. As though it had quotes around it. She met his gaze and saw something there, an uneasiness.

  The detective cleared his throat. He slid back in his chair, which gave Kelly a type of sad satisfaction. Good. Be uneasy.

  “Sterling Marshall was very close to the man you shot in the head.”

  She nodded at him. “Yep.” He couldn’t shake her. If the washing machine couldn’t shake her, if the memory of that letter couldn’t shake her, then nothing could, including him, especially him—Barry Brûlée or whatever his name was. He was made of cinnamon. She was made of rock.

  “Would you say that you got along well with your father-in-law?”

  “Sure.”

  “Really? Give me an idea of how close you were. Did you call him Sterling? Mr. Marshall? Dad?”

  “This is how it’s going to be, huh?”

  “I’m asking pretty basic questions.”

  “Are you going to talk to my husband? Will you at least show him the suicide note?”

  “Bellamy Marshall says that you and her father were not on the best of terms. Is she lying?” Kelly looked at him—the gold-spun eyebrows, the faerie green eyes. The pale pink hands, hovering over his mug.

  He said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever feel like . . .”

  “I said you can’t ask me something.”

  “Did you ever feel like Sterling Marshall chose John McFadden over you?”

  She stared at him. “I don’t care if he did.”

  “Mr. Marshall gave an interview two days ago. In the Times. It was for the fifth anniversary of your release. I’m sure you read it. He said he still misses his old pal John. But he doesn’t blame you, not anymore. You were just a kid after all. Raised by an uncaring, irresponsible mother. Tragically lost your twin just a few years before, and besides, you were on drugs. A teen addict. Didn’t know right from wrong.”

  Kelly heard a noise outside the kitchen window—a swooping hiss. Turkey vulture. “He never said that about my mother.”

  “Where were you this morning, between the hours of midnight and three A.M.?”

  “Here.”

  “You mean, in this house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can anyone verify your whereabouts? Your husband, maybe?”

  She shut her eyes. Behind her lids she saw a fuse box—the same one she’d made up in her mind at seventeen when she’d stood outside the courthouse, surrounded by strangers, her whole future crashing in, turning to dust. Cameras flashing at her and men with mean voices shouting her name, but all she’d heard was the hum of that imaginary fuse box. All she’d seen were the two long rows of switches, shutting down one by one.

  And she’d smiled.

  “Mrs. Marshall,” he said. “Were you at your father-in-law’s last night?”

  “You need to leave,” she said. “You have no right to be here. You have no right to question me in my house, without a lawyer present.”

  The detective took a long drag off his supersweet coffee, then placed the cup back onto the saucer. The clink hurt Kelly’s ears. The whole time, he never took his eyes off of hers, the green of them glittering with something . . . knowledge or hate. Or maybe it was both. That’s what all this technique was, wasn’t it? A combination of knowledge and hate, cooked up and heaped on you like teaspoons of sugar.

  “We’ll be in touch, Ms. Lund,” he said.

  AFTER HE LEFT, KELLY LOCKED THE DOOR. AND AS SHE TRANSFERRED her clothes and shoes into the dryer, she thought of Sterling Marshall’s letter again—the only letter he’d ever written her, outside of the holiday cards addressed and signed by Mary, his wife. A letter sent to a prison fifteen years ago, when Kelly was thirty-two but still seventeen inside because prison locks you up in other ways, not just physically. And so, before starting to read Sterling Marshall’s words, Kelly had spent a good amount of time marveling at the creamy paper, the glossy ink. She’d run her fingertips over the gold-embossed name and felt, for a time, special. A letter from the Sterling Marshall. Written in his own hand. To her.

  She remembered how beautiful Sterling Marshall’s signature had looked, even after she’d read the letter—a letter asking her to get rid of her baby and not to tell her husband about the pregnancy, ever.

  She remembered what Sterling Marshall had written, just before signing it: Family means everything to me.

  To this day, she still had no doubt he’d meant it.
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br />   CHAPTER 4

  SHOTGUN WEDDING! “MONA LISA” KILLER TIES THE KNOT WITH MOVIE STAR’S SON

  I now pronounce you man . . . and murderer?

  In a top-secret ceremony behind the barbed wire gates of Carpentia Women’s State Correctional Facility, Shane Marshall, 25, wed Kelly Michelle Lund, 32—the dead-eyed former teen drug addict currently serving 25 years to life for the brutal slaying of Oscar-nominated director John McFadden.

  The son of movie legend Sterling Marshall, boyishly handsome Shane wore a charcoal gray suit and dark glasses as he entered the prison on May 15, his mother, Mary, at his side. “Shane’s been visiting Kelly at least once a week for years,” a prison insider tells the Enquirer. “To say they’re an odd couple would be a pretty big understatement!”

  Shane’s mom was the only family member present at the wedding, which lasted 15 minutes and was performed by the prison chaplain. “My son is in love. I can’t stand in the way of that,” Mary said in a statement. But Shane’s big sister Bellamy Marshall, 32, wasn’t so accepting. “I wasn’t invited to the wedding,” said the art world superstar, whose chilling piece Mona Lisa immortalized the coke-addled murderess at her sentencing. “I don’t agree with or understand my brother’s decision.”

  Like it or not, though, the arty beauty may be an aunt soon! The Enquirer has learned that Carpentia allows conjugal visits. And according to our prison source, sexy Shane wasted no time shacking up with his killer bride!

  National Enquirer

  May 25, 1995

  CHAPTER 5

  FEBRUARY 12, 1980

  Each sound echoed. The slamming of the Trans Am’s door, Kelly’s ragged breath, her footsteps, too heavy as she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment, her key sliding into the lock, turning.

  Kelly hoped her mom was asleep, but that was a stupid thing to hope, especially once she’d opened the door and felt the blaze of the kitchen lights and heard the oldies station blasting and inhaled that piney, chemical smell.

  Mom was cleaning.

  “Is that you?” Mom’s voice came from behind the high kitchen counter, singsongy like the voice on the tinny transistor radio. In the jungle, the mighty jungle . . .

  “Hi, Mom.” Kelly stepped around the counter. Mom was on her hands and knees, scrubbing. She leaned into it, working harder than was necessary, her whole body surging with each scrub-stroke like waves slapping the shore. “Where were you?” Mom said.

  “Out?”

  “Come on now, Kelly,” Mom grunted, “be specific.” Her breathing was sharp. Her fingers gripped the brush handle and Kelly couldn’t help but stare at the knuckles, so white it looked like the bones were pushing through. “Who were you out with?”

  Kelly’s heart pounded. She’d worked this out in her mind when Len was driving her home, but back then she’d been higher than she was now.

  “I was with a friend”—Kelly tried anyway—“from math class. We have a test coming up and we were studying late. I lost track of time.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  She swallowed. “Susie.”

  “Susie what?”

  “Susie . . . Mitchell.” Kelly gazed at the counter—Mom had bought a bunch of new bananas. They were splayed out in a bowl, nearly ripe but not quite, their skins that pretty pale green. Kelly liked them best that way. She liked that slight tartness, the whiteness of the fruit. Her stomach growled, and she wanted to take one, but she was afraid that if she did, Mom might make a fuss about her eating so late or worse yet, she’d know what she’d been doing. “Do you have the munchies?” Mom would say. She knew enough to say that, to use those words.

  Scrub, scrub, scrub . . . “What do Susie’s parents do?”

  “Her dad is a doctor and her mom . . .” Kelly cleared her throat. “She’s a nurse.” Next to the bananas was a tin ashtray mounded with cigarettes. There had to be at least a pack’s worth in there, and it had been empty this morning. It was hypocritical, Mom’s habit displayed on the kitchen counter like a bouquet of flowers, Kelly using everything she had to hide one night.

  One life-changing night . . .

  “So if I called the school and asked for Susie Mitchell, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell, they’d know who I was talking about?”

  Kelly drew in a shaky breath. “You shouldn’t smoke so much.”

  Scrub, scrub, scrub . . .

  Kelly listened to the song. Hush my darling. Don’t fear my darling. The antenna gleamed at her. She desperately wanted to go to her room.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Mom said.

  Kelly looked down. Her skirt was inside out. Quickly, she shifted it so that the tag was in the back, crossed her arms over the waistband. “Sure,” she tried, though she couldn’t quite remember the question now.

  The radio said, a weem a woppa weem a woppa. Mom’s shoulders surged to the beat, her hair flopping. She wore faded jeans, an oversize, pale blue men’s shirt that must’ve come from her most recent ex-boyfriend—a banker who, as it turned out, had both a wife and little kids. Kelly spotted a long sweat stain, running down the back.

  Mom said, “I got a call from your school.”

  “Huh?”

  Mom stopped scrubbing. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Kelly, a shiny lock of hair falling across her forehead. Her natural color was the same as Kelly’s—“ash blond” she called it—but she dyed it a brighter shade to look good under the lights at I. Magnin. It reminded Kelly of a goldfish. It was the same color Catherine’s had been. “It was the principal’s office, Kelly. You had detention today and never showed up for it.”

  “Oh . . .”

  Mom stared into her eyes, so sharp a stare that Kelly could feel it—as though she were trying to bash into her brain, read her thoughts . . . Can she tell I’ve been smoking? Does she know about what I did with Len?

  “That’s all you’re going to say, Kelly? Oh?”

  Kelly took a breath, wrapped her arms tighter around her waist. Just sound normal. “It was my science teacher.” She said the words very carefully. “I didn’t know the answer to a question. He got mad at me. He told me I was on detention but I thought . . . I thought he was just saying it. He’s mean. He doesn’t like me and . . .”

  “They said he’d marked down that you were insubordinate.”

  “I wasn’t, Mom,” Kelly said. “I swear. He just . . . he doesn’t like me.”

  Mom let out a heavy, rattling breath. “Go on to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s late.” Kelly left the room, relief flooding all over her, through her. I’m free. She let her thoughts wander now because she could. She recalled what had happened in Len’s Trans Am, all of it. She imagined herself on the phone with Bellamy, receiver pressed to her ear, her voice a thin whisper.

  Guess what? I have another secret.

  She wished she could call her. But it was 2:00 A.M., and she had school tomorrow and besides, the phone was in the kitchen. Right next to the bananas. Man, Kelly was hungry. Her stomach gnawed at her.

  Kelly couldn’t think of food anymore and so she made herself think of other things, of Len again, his bucket seats that reclined all the way back and how he’d said, “Sorry,” afterward. How he’d handed her a Kleenex, which was sort of gentlemanly in a way . . .

  “Kelly,” Mom called out. “Stop dawdling!”

  “I’m not!”

  Dawdling. What an old-lady word. Mom had an old-lady name too—Rose Lund. It didn’t match her looks at all, but it suited her personality, especially in the past two years. She never laughed, hardly ever smiled when she wasn’t with a boyfriend. And even with her boyfriends, Mom’s smiles looked fake, like someone posing for a picture. She said things like “stop dawdling” and “don’t you sass me, young lady” and spent her whole life working and cleaning and smoking, not enjoying any of it, dating boring men with boring jobs she thought could “get us out of Hollywood once and for all.”

  Mom hadn’t always been this way. Kelly had dim memor
ies from back when their dad still lived with them—one in particular, a chicken fight in some fancy pool, Catherine on Mom’s shoulders, Kelly on their dad’s. They must have been about six years old. Mom had been wearing a hot pink bikini and was laughing so hard, tears streamed down her cheeks. She may have been drunk, now that Kelly thought about it, but seeing her laugh like that . . . Mom had such a great laugh. They’d been at the home of a B movie producer—Kelly’s dad was a stuntman, and Mom had worked as a makeup artist, so they used to get invited to a lot of these low-level Hollywood parties, their little family . . .

  “Kelly Michelle Lund!”

  “I’m getting ready for bed!”

  “It doesn’t sound like it!”

  Kelly rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay.” Passing Mom’s room, Kelly noticed a big heart-shaped box on the nightstand. Who’s that from? Her stomach gaped, begged. She could practically smell it. Chocolate. Just one piece.

  Kelly heard the weem a woppa song ending, Casey Kasem’s voice, murmuring something about a classic. Casey’s voice reminded Kelly of her dad’s, the gentleness of it. Outside of Catherine’s funeral, where all he’d done was sob, Kelly hadn’t heard Dad’s voice since she was little, but still she remembered. At least she thought she did.

  “We’ll be right back,” said Casey, and then some used-car ad came on, about fifty decibels louder than the show had been. Kelly slipped off her shoes, timed her footsteps on the soft carpet to land with each shouted word.

  Catherine’s framed picture sat on Mom’s nightstand next to the chocolates. It wasn’t normally there, the picture. It was usually on the TV in the den, and seeing it here, in Mom’s room, made Kelly think back more than she wanted to.

  Kelly looked into her sister’s bottle green eyes as she slipped the lid off the box, took a piece from the edge—coconut, which her mom wouldn’t miss. Those eyes. They still laugh at you.

  Catherine had left them on Valentine’s Day. Weird, that hadn’t occurred to Kelly until now. The picture next to the bed. The chocolates. It had taken all that, just to remind her. But the truth was, it hadn’t felt sudden. Years before she died, Catherine had begun leaving Kelly and Mom, a little at a time.