Murder Is Forever, Volume 1 Read online

  “Dee Dee lived not for herself,” Pastor Mike continues, “but for others. She lived first and foremost for her daughter, Gypsy Rose. If you asked Dee Dee how she herself felt on a particular day, she might tell you that Gypsy had or hadn’t slept well, that a symptom of her daughter’s illness had or hadn’t improved. Never a word about her own plight, her own suffering.”

  Aleah thinks: Of course she never complained. Not to you. You were Dee Dee Blancharde’s cash cow. The thought surprises her. She feels confused, ashamed, and not very Christian. The plain truth is that she never much liked Dee Dee. The outsize woman, now resting just a few feet away in her outsize coffin, made Aleah uncomfortable. She had been overbearing, smothering. A control freak who always found a way to make herself the center of attention. Pastor Mike was right in saying that she didn’t talk about herself, but it was always Dee Dee’s energy, Dee Dee’s anxiety that dominated a room. The fact that she died doesn’t change who she was in life. Somehow, Aleah had thought it would. She’d thought it would be easier to love the dead, whose sins and shortcomings were once and for all behind them.

  “The greatest way to honor Dee Dee,” Pastor Mike goes on, “is to care for her daughter as she no longer can. Dee Dee was a savior to that girl, and a friend to this church.”

  Aleah realizes that she does not much like Pastor Mike, either. He speaks in preacher-voice even when he isn’t preaching, and there is something self-congratulatory about his goodness, like he’s always hovering above himself, smiling and approving. These thoughts frighten Aleah: here she is in a church, thinking ill of a dead woman and a pastor. She may have her doubts about the character of certain people, but she has no doubt that hell is real.

  “I know many of you have participated in search parties, donning your galoshes and rolling up your sleeves to comb through damp fields and marshes on scalding summer days. To tell you the truth, I’m glad that you’ve found nothing. I’m more than glad. I’m encouraged. I feel it in my bones: Gypsy Rose is alive.”

  Aleah’s mother gives her hand a little squeeze. Aleah does her best to smile.

  “We must prepare, then, to welcome Gypsy Rose Blancharde back into our community and into our hearts. Gypsy, a simple and innocent soul who never harmed and would never dream of harming any living creature. Gypsy, a fragile young girl with an infectious laugh and a warm smile for anyone she meets. Gypsy, with a passion for cinema and a gift for art. Gypsy…”

  Aleah can’t take anymore. She thinks: Don’t pretend you know her. Gypsy isn’t simple. She isn’t innocent—not the way you mean. She’s a person. A real, living human being.

  Almost as though it’s happening without her, Aleah leaps up and runs out of the church, letting the double doors slam shut in her wake. Her mother finds her a few moments later, sitting on a bench in the small square opposite Springfield Methodist, weeping and beating on her legs with both fists.

  “Aleah,” her mother says, “stop that. Stop it right now.”

  She kneels down, grabs her daughter’s wrists.

  “I wish it was me,” Aleah yells.

  “You wish what was you?”

  “I wish it was me instead of Gypsy, wherever she is. Whatever he’s doing to her. I didn’t believe her. I wish it was me. It should be me.”

  “Aleah, honey, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m no good. Dad’s right. Dee Dee was right. There’s nothing good about me. I have no reason to—”

  “Your father never said—”

  “You think I don’t hear you every night? He said it and he meant it and he’s right.”

  “Aleah, I need you to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

  “She’s alive,” Aleah says. “She’s alive, and what he’s doing to her is worse than what he did to Dee Dee. It should be me. I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t care how long…”

  She’s out of breath now, gasping and sobbing at once. Her mother climbs up onto the bench, takes Aleah in her arms, and kisses her forehead.

  “Let’s go home,” she says.

  Chapter 16

  It’s eight in the morning, and Slater sits in the break room picking through the remains of last night’s takeout: a watery pad Thai that he dresses up now with ketchup and red pepper. While he eats, he again reads through the meager case file labeled Gypsy Rose Blancharde. He wonders if the search might lead them to New Orleans, if someone from Gypsy’s past came to retrieve her. Lately, his mind has been spinning out theories faster than he can reject them. Theories are easy to come by, he thinks. Facts, not so much.

  He feels as though it’s been weeks since he slept. Last night, at three a.m., he gave up trying, slipped out of bed, and drove around the streets of Springfield, hoping that Gypsy’s captor, if she had in fact been captured, might take her out for some air in the dead of night. He squinted at every porch, got out and peered over fences. He kept at it all the way until his shift started.

  Alone in the break room, he feels his eyes shutting. He pushes aside his plate, folds his arms on the table, and starts to rest his head when Draper comes bolting through the doorway.

  “Nicholas Godejohn,” she says.

  She’s panting like she’s run up multiple flights of stairs though her desk sits just a short distance down the hall.

  “Who?” Slater asks, rubbing his eyes.

  “Nicholas Godejohn, 512 Crestview Road.”

  “Emily, take a breath. Start from the top.”

  “Forensics tracked him down through the credit card he used to pay for Christian Couples.”

  “You’re saying…”

  “I’m saying it’s him. Gypsy’s Secret Sam.”

  Slater stands as though in a daze, then grabs up his coffee mug and swallows the dregs so quickly that brown liquid dribbles down his chin.

  “Get the team together,” he says. “I’ll call SWAT.”

  * * *

  Nicholas Godejohn wakes, lifts off his night mask, sees that Gypsy is already up. He runs a hand over her side of the bed, finds it still warm. The clock says nine fifteen. Probably making my breakfast, he tells himself. The way I showed her.

  He smiles to himself, shuts his eyes, and drops his head back onto the pillow. True, their relationship got off to a rocky start—killing a nearly four-hundred-pound woman had been messier and more physically taxing than he’d imagined, and Gypsy had not been as grateful as he would have liked—but there is no denying that, overall, Nicholas has done well. Pick ’em fresh from the tree, his second foster father used to say. And they don’t come any fresher than Gypsy Rose Blancharde. In a way, it’s like her life started when she met him. Before that, she’d been living someone else’s life, a life someone else had made up for her. She was his now to train, to raise up right.

  Of course, there are rough patches ahead of them, too. They will have to get clear of Missouri, then get out of the country altogether. Nicholas has a place picked out in Canada, a trailer on a large plot of land in the northern Rockies. He can rent it for a song from his co-worker’s father who is too ill now for hunting and fishing, let alone skiing. Nicholas is just waiting for his last check from the bottling plant to clear. His savings, coupled with the four thousand dollars from Dee Dee’s safe, should last them a good while.

  It’s the travel that scares him. Stopping for gas and eating at diners and checking into motels—all those places where Gypsy might be recognized. Lucky for him, the girl loves to wear disguises.

  He feels air moving in his stomach, listens for signs of Gypsy bringing his breakfast. He is keeping her culinary lessons simple for now: instant oatmeal with frozen strawberries mixed in; instant coffee with just a dollop of creamer. He’d had to teach her how to boil water. When they get to Canada, he’ll teach her more: how to gut and fry the fish he catches; how to make a proper duck stew; how to pick chokecherries and turn them into jam. Things he learned from a string of foster families all across the state of Wyoming. They will live off the land as much as possible, grow old in t
he company of Mother Nature.

  He hears a crashing from somewhere inside the house, a metal pot hitting the floor and clattering around. He can’t blame her: in a way, she’s still learning how to walk. He considers going out to help her but doesn’t yet have the energy to rouse himself.

  Then he hears something else, this time coming from outside the house, from just outside his bedroom window, in the narrow space between his bungalow and his neighbor’s fence. A crackling sound, like static on a radio, followed quickly by a string of hushed curses. He sits up, slaps himself awake, goes to the window, and pulls the shade back an inch. There’s a man dressed all in black standing maybe a yard away, fiddling with some kind of handheld device. Still drowsy, Nicholas thinks it must be the gas man, but then he realizes: employees of the gas company don’t carry side arms.

  He steps back, tugs the shade as far open as he dares, cranes his neck. There are cop cars with their lights flashing and sirens muted clogging his quiet residential street. He pulls his hand away, lets the shade fall shut, and hops around in his bare feet as though the floor were made of burning coals.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he says.

  He looks furiously around the room, spots his jeans lying crumpled in a corner, pulls them on. He has no time to worry about a shirt or shoes. He jets down the hallway and out the back door, finds his yard crowded with men in black masks brandishing machine guns. He throws his hands in the air, but they tackle him anyway, pushing him face-forward into the dirt.

  Once the cuffs are on, they roll him onto his back. He looks up, sees a man in plain clothes staring down at him.

  “Where is she?” Slater asks.

  There’s no point in playing dumb.

  “Inside,” Nicholas says. “But she ain’t who you think she is.”

  Chapter 17

  It’s been a week since Dr. Ryan saw Gypsy and her mother. He spends his lunch hour searching for Gypsy’s New Orleans physician, calling colleagues in the parish where they lived before coming to Springfield. He is about to give up when a hospital administrator reads him the number for Gypsy’s primary care physician, a Dr. John Wyatt.

  He has just fifteen minutes before his next patient is scheduled. He dials Dr. Wyatt’s office, and a woman’s voice asks if he wouldn’t mind holding. Before he can answer, he’s listening to a Muzak version of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” He reviews the results of Gypsy’s blood work while he waits. The tests show tell-tale signs of malnutrition. Her electrolyte levels are perilously low, and she’s deficient in almost every essential vitamin. Her complete blood count, however, gives no indication of leukemia. Dr. Ryan is stumped.

  “Dr. Hall’s office,” a new, more gravelly female voice says. “I apologize for the wait. How may I help you today?”

  “Dr. Hall? I’m sorry, I was trying to reach Dr. Wyatt.”

  “Good luck with that,” the woman says. “He retired a few months back. Last I heard he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He’s seventy years old but still fit as a fiddle, that one.”

  “I see. My name is Dr. Daniel Ryan. I’m calling from Springfield, Missouri. It seems I’ve inherited one of his patients. Would you by any chance have access to his records?”

  “In my head I might. Katrina wiped out our paper trail, but I’ve been a nurse in this office going on fifteen years. Who’s your patient?”

  So Dee Dee had been telling at least a partial truth: Katrina really did erase Gypsy’s medical history.

  “Her name is Gypsy Rose Blancharde,” Dr. Ryan says.

  “Oh, I remember Gypsy all right,” the nurse says. “How could I forget? She was here so much we thought about charging her momma rent.”

  Dr. Ryan perks up: this is the first glimmer of hope in an otherwise wasted hour.

  “Do you remember what Dr. Wyatt was treating Gypsy for?”

  “Gosh, I’d have to say just about everything at one time or another. I remember a visit where she had high blood pressure, then another where she barely had a pulse.”

  “But no specific diagnosis?”

  “I know she had asthma. And eczema, maybe. That girl’s skin would flake like the devil.”

  “Nothing more serious? No cancer? No autoimmune illness? No chromosomal abnormalities?”

  “No sir, nothing like that. Gypsy was all symptoms and no disease.”

  Dr. Ryan does his best not to sound accusatory.

  “Do you know then how she wound up in a wheelchair and an oxygen mask?”

  “Well, you’d have to ask Dr. Wyatt about that. Like I said, Gypsy had no shortage of things wrong with her. They just didn’t add up to any one illness.”

  Dr. Ryan decides to press a little further.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of physician was Dr. Wyatt?”

  “Oh, he was a plain old family practitioner.”

  “I guess I’m asking more about—”

  “I know what you’re asking about. Dr. Wyatt wasn’t a quack, I can tell you that much. Knew his medicine inside and out. But he was…fearful.”

  “Fearful?”

  “Mostly, Dr. Wyatt did what he could not to get sued. Especially once the end was in sight. He wanted to get out the door without any headaches chasing after him. And no one put him on edge like that girl’s mother. She had civil court written all over her. I’m telling you this for your sake. And Gypsy’s, too.”

  “I see,” Dr. Ryan says. “Thank you very much. You’ve been a big help.”

  He hangs up with just a few minutes left until his next appointment. His first thought is that he would like to find this Dr. Wyatt and wring his neck. He’s certain now: Gypsy isn’t sick so much as she’s being made sick by her mother. But why? Why would any parent deliberately manufacture a sick child?

  Dee Dee, he reasons, is like a stage mother gone to the opposite extreme. Instead of pressuring her daughter to be perfect, Dee Dee burdens Gypsy with debilitating illness. Instead of organizing her life around Gypsy’s auditions and classes and recitals, she organizes her life around Gypsy’s doctor visits. Like a stage mother, Dee Dee controls her daughter’s every action, but unlike a stage mother, Dee Dee has an airtight defense should Gypsy ever choose to rebel. To all appearances, Dee Dee isn’t forcing Gypsy to do anything against her will: rather, she is selflessly shepherding her daughter through the most difficult life imaginable.

  Dee Dee must have worked hard to create a universe where no one would suspect that there was nothing at all wrong with Gypsy. To begin with, she would have needed to limit the witnesses—get rid of the father, if he was ever in the picture; alienate any extended family; insist on homeschooling. Later, when Gypsy was old enough to understand, she must have convinced the child herself that she was sick. She must have fabricated evidence. Poisoned Gypsy’s food so that eating came to mean nausea, vomiting; smothered her in her sleep and called it apnea; injected her with urine to stimulate infections; induced seizures with drugs or sleep deprivation.

  Finally, Dee Dee would have had to convince the medical community. She likely shopped around until she found the right doctor, one who saw her as a concerned and loving parent who would gladly trade her own life for her child’s health if only such a thing were possible. A doctor who promised to rise to the challenge, find the rare diagnosis that fit Gypsy’s extraordinary range of symptoms.

  By making Gypsy sick, Dee Dee had created a need that only she could fill. She’d given her life a vital purpose, a purpose that wouldn’t end once her child was grown, though it might very well end with her child’s death. At which point, Dee Dee would become a martyr.

  Not that Dee Dee consciously thinks in these terms. Dee Dee, Dr. Ryan understands, is the one who’s ill. She suffers from a psychological disease that allows her to believe in her daughter’s sickness. It’s as though there are two separate Dee Dees: the one who poisons and starves her daughter, and the one who fights to keep her daughter alive. The savior might be vaguely aware of the villain’s existence, but the two have neve
r met face-to-face.

  But Gypsy is still young. There is time to stop this before the damage proves irreversible.

  Dr. Ryan turns to the front page of Gypsy’s file, picks up the phone, and dials Dee Dee’s number. An automated message informs him that she is unavailable. He waits for the tone.

  “Hello, Ms. Blancharde,” he says. “This is Dr. Ryan calling. I have Gypsy’s test results, and I need to speak with you in person as soon as possible. Please call my office to schedule an appointment. And please do not plan to bring Gypsy; I’d like to speak with you one on one. Again, this is urgent.”

  He hangs up with the sinking feeling that Dee Dee will never return his call.

  Chapter 18

  It’s Dee Dee who answers the door. Aleah had hoped to find Gypsy waiting on the front walk, ready to go.

  “Come in, come in,” Dee Dee says. “Her highness is still getting ready.”

  “Thank you,” Aleah says, stepping inside.

  The air conditioner is pumping full blast, and the abrupt change in temperature gives Aleah goose bumps up and down her arms. The Blancharde home is looking more and more lived in. There are supermarket flyers piled high on the table, clothes and linens draped all over Aleah’s spare wheelchairs, dirty dishes stacked on the floor in front of the couch.

  “Gypsy,” Dee Dee calls. “Your ride is here.”

  The dig isn’t lost on Aleah: she isn’t Gypsy’s friend, she’s a means of transportation.

  “Be right there,” Gypsy yells back.

  Dee Dee turns to Aleah.

  “So what movie are you two seeing again?” she asks.

  The question sounds like pure suspicion.

  “It’s a French sci-fi flick,” Aleah says. “Gypsy picked it.”

  “Of course she did. That girl and her fantasies. Not that I’m much better. That’s one thing she gets from me. I’m sure there are other things, but this is one of those days when I just can’t see them. Girl’s been working my last nerve since breakfast.”