Killer's Cousin

I sat down. "I don't remember. You'd better tell me." My father nodded. We looked at each other straight on for possibly the first time, neither of us looking away. He said, "I was at the inquest. It--Kathy's death--was ugly. She ingested a glass of cleaning solvent. Ammonia of some kind. She was taking a bubble bath, and apparently had the glass all ready next to the tub. She drank half of it--more wasn't required. It burned out her throat, and she sank down under the water. The actual cause of death was drowning. There was water in her lungs. "And Lily . . . Well, Kathy had locked the door to the attic but Lily knew where the key was. She had sneaked in before. She liked to hang out here when Kathy wasn't in." Now, that sounded like Lily to me. "So she thought Kathy was out?" I asked. "I think so," said my father. "Her testimony was a little confused. She was only seven. The judge was very gentle with her." "What did she see?" I asked. "At first she didn't realize Kathy was there. The bathroom door was closed. Then she heard a noise . . . probably the glass crashing to the floor." My mother made a sound, a soft involuntary mew, and my father paused for a moment, glancing at her, before continuing. "Lily said she burst into the bathroom--yelling 'Boo!' or something. The bathroom door wasn't locked. You understand that it would all have happened very quickly. Kathy would have been beneath the water already. Lily said she thought Kathy was playing a game, holding her breath under the water. But she didn't come up." "Lily got all wet," said my mother. "She tried to pull Kathy out . . ." The ice cream I'd eaten earlier threatened to push its way back up my throat. "Lily even tried to pick up the glass," my father said. "But of course it had shattered on the tile when Kathy dropped it, so Lily's hands got cut up. And her knees . . . She kept saying it was her fault. Children that age, they often think they're responsible for everything." I had a vivid picture of Lily kneeling on the shards by the tub, pulling desperately at Kathy. "Okay," I said. "That's enough." But then I thought of something else. "This was about Kathy's boyfriend?" I asked. "The one who dumped her?" "Yes," said my mother. "Well," said my father, the stickler for detail, "that's what the inquest concluded. The letter from him was on the kitchen counter." I asked, "Did Kathy write a note or something?" "No," he said, then added, "I wish she had. It would have been . . . not easier, perhaps, but more final." He shrugged. "People usually leave letters, but not always. This could have been a sudden impulse. Probably Kathy didn't really intend to die. Just to get sick. To scare her boyfriend, perhaps. And maybe Vic and Julia, too. They'd been fighting." I found myself staring across the room into the bathroom. Its door was ajar, and I could see the edge of the tub inside. "Why were Vic and Julia fighting with Kathy?" I asked. "They'd been fighting since she dropped out of college," my mother said. "She'd been commuting to U. Mass, Boston. Do you remember?" "Something, yeah," I said. What I suddenly did remember were my mother's comments about it.Julia won't pull her claws out of Kathy. Mark my words: That girl will never get away. "So they were angry at Kathy for dropping out of school?" I asked. "Yes. They'd been letting her live here rent free. But when she dropped out and got a job, Julia said she had to start paying." My mother's tone dripped disapproval. "That doesn't sound unreasonable," IWerlin, Nancy is the author of 'Killer's Cousin' with ISBN 9780440227519 and ISBN 0440227518.