28
Caroline Radcliffe answered the carriage house door wearing dark jeans and a loose, flowing yellow blouse. She still wore her graying brown hair in tight, old-fashioned curls, but the overall effect was more modern than the housedress she’d been wearing during Laurie’s previous visit.
“To be completely frank,” she said to Laurie once they were seated at the kitchen table with two iced teas, “Kendra already told me that you’d probably ask to speak with me. It’s important to me that you know she told me to be completely forthcoming with you. I feel like you and Martin’s parents pushed her to do this, but now that she has agreed, I think she hopes something good will finally come out of it. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose the father of your children that way and have no answers for them.”
I can, Laurie thought.
She listened carefully as Caroline narrated the events of the night Martin Bell was killed. The sound of the garage door opening, followed by three loud pops. Running outside to find Martin mortally wounded. Calling 911 and then struggling to rouse Kendra from what Caroline politely called a “nap.”
“And where were the children during all of this?”
“I told them the sounds were firecrackers and had them go up to their rooms. But as soon as Kendra was awake and finally able to process what was happening, I took them over to one of the neighbors’ apartments on the next block for an impromptu slumber party. They were thrilled at the surprise. I figured they deserved one more night of normalcy before their lives got turned upside down.”
“You were the one to make that decision?” Laurie asked. “Not their mother?”
Caroline’s mouth was set in a straight line, and her gaze shifted to the table. “As I mentioned to the police, she wasn’t completely focused at the time.”
“Was she frequently in that state?”
“She was going through a very hard time. I believe she told you that it was postpartum depression.”
“I remember what Kendra told me. I’d like to know what you observed directly.”
Caroline shrugged. “When Dr. Bell hired me, he told me that his wife ‘wasn’t well’ since the children were born, especially after Mindy. I assumed it was depression. I’ve seen it before in new mothers.”
Laurie could tell that Caroline was about to say more but then stopped herself. “But Kendra’s case was different?” she prompted.
Caroline nodded slowly. “She almost seemed . . . zombie-like. She was often in what appeared to be a dreamlike state. It’s possible it was simply a very severe case of postpartum, but . . .”
She didn’t need to complete the rest of the sentence. It was clear that Caroline had her doubts.
“Martin’s parents think it’s possible you’ve been holding back information that might help them get custody of the children. They said you care very deeply for Bobby and Mindy—”
“Of course I do. Almost as if they were my own.”
Laurie saw the desperation in Caroline’s eyes and knew that the Bells’ suspicions were correct. Caroline was holding something back. “I’m asking you this in complete confidence, Caroline: If you had to guess, are you a hundred percent certain that Kendra is innocent?”
The color drained from her face and she began to shake her head, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
“You have doubts.” Laurie said aloud what she knew Caroline could not.
The nanny hesitated then nodded her head in agreement, wiping away the tears with the sleeve of her blouse.
Laurie placed a hand gently on Caroline’s free hand. “If you have doubts, eventually they will, too,” she said, holding Caroline’s gaze. “They’re little now, and you’re trying to protect the normalcy of their lives—just as you did on that horrible night. But when they get older, they’re going to ask the same questions the public has been wondering about for five years. They’ll look at their mother and wonder if the woman who raised them killed the father they barely remember. That’s no way to live, Caroline. Secrets have a way of spiraling over the course of years. It’s better for the truth to come out now.”
Caroline sniffed and pulled her hand away from Laurie’s. “I saw the money,” she said, her voice now low. “The withdrawals the police were asking about. I used to find wads of money—fifties, hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in total—stashed in her sock drawer and behind her shoes in the closet. And then one day, it would all be gone.”
The information was noteworthy, but Kendra had already admitted that she used to go on excessive shopping sprees. “Maybe wasting all that money was my quiet way of getting back at Martin for his affair,” she had said.
Caroline’s expression hardened. “Kendra has suffered enough,” she burst out. “She’s finally getting what amounts to a normal life. She has a job she likes. It’s pretty clear that the doctor she works for is crazy about her.”
“But,” Laurie asked, her voice quiet, “Caroline, I know there is something you haven’t told me. And if it somehow comes out while we’re shooting, it will be a lot worse than if we know it now.”
Caroline folded her arms, and her gaze drifted as if she were looking directly through Laurie into another dimension. “That night,” she said dreamily, “I was shaking Kendra so hard I was worried I might hurt her. I was yelling over and over again that Martin had been murdered. And then suddenly the words seemed to get through to her. She stood up and—I’ll never forget it—she said, ‘Am I finally free of him?’ She sounded at once both terrified and—dare I say it—happy. She was finally free.”
It felt as if someone had lit a fire beneath Laurie’s chair. No matter how bad the marriage, she couldn’t imagine a woman being happy about the murder of her children’s father.
Caroline was focused on Laurie again, trying to explain away the relevance of Kendra’s hazy utterance. “I don’t think she did it,” Caroline said. “I think it was just her initial reaction to the news. She was that miserable. It’s not like it was a confession or anything.”
“Fair enough,” Laurie said. “It’s important for us to know that. Is there anything else?”
She left the question in the air, sure that the nanny was still holding something back.
Then Caroline added, “There’s one more thing. The money hoarding I mentioned? She still does it. And if anything, the dollar amounts have gone up.”