Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [18]
DiMaggio was the CEO of an Eastside research company. She’d explained it to me once, but the details were fuzzy. Having resigned a profitable position as an executive in a New York department store chain ten years earlier, Marge had joined her husband’s fledgling research outfit. Then, out of respect for her husband’s memory, she’d stayed on with the company after his death. According to Holly, Canyon View now held patents that aided scientists across the country in gene and DNA research, patents that had enticed megacorporations to pump big bucks into Canyon View’s coffers.
When Stephanie and Aunt Marge turned to me, I could see the family resemblance. They were both relatively short, the older woman a couple of inches taller than her niece, both with slightly squarish faces, a trace of freckles, light-colored eyes. Marge displayed an openness I found comforting under the circumstances, perhaps because there was already so much guile and manipulation in the room. “Jim . . .” she said.
“It’s such a shock to see her like this. I—”
“A shock?” Stephanie said loudly. “You sonofabitch. The only thing Holly ever meant to you was a romp in the hay.”
“Despite what you may believe, Dr. Riggs, I feel awful. She’s the second friend I’ve seen like this today.”
“Yes, you’ve already told me how you’re having such a bad day,” Stephanie mocked. “Poor baby.”
“Okay. Sure. I could have treated your sister better. You probably could have, too. And maybe Aunt Marge could have. Maybe everybody could treat everybody better. But at least I don’t take my guilt out on total strangers.”
I stalked out the doorway.
For a moment Stephanie was speechless; then she yelled at my back and her shrieking voice told me how close I’d gotten to the heart of the matter. “Get out! Don’t ever come back! Get out! Get out of here, you stupid bastard!”
I was halfway down the corridor when I realized Marge DiMaggio was following me.
“Jim. Don’t listen to her. She’s been out of sorts. She cried for two days when she first got here.”
DiMaggio stopped in front of me and hugged me, and after a few moments I could feel her heaving against my chest as she wept. She was fashionably New York thin, the flesh of her arms and back stringy and soft. “Jim, I can’t get over how good it is to see you. It was wonderful of you to come. And never mind Steph. You want to see Holly, you come any time.”
It was hard to see a point in a second visit. Holly hadn’t known I was here tonight and would hardly jump up to greet me if I came again.
“I’ll come as often as I can. I would have been down here sooner if I’d known.”
“I know, dear.” Standing close, Marge DiMaggio held my elbows. She was about the same age as my mother, her hair dyed the same stark black as my mother’s, though, as far as I know, my mother hadn’t yet resorted to cosmetic surgery the way DiMaggio obviously had. “I feel so bad about all of this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, it is. I should have done more for Holly. She came up here from California because I was the only family she had on the West Coast. At first I gave her a job with my company, but she didn’t want to work indoors. And she had no skills. So then when this truck-driving idea developed, I treated her to the driver’s school. I even threw work her way. That company she drove for in Seattle? It belongs to an old friend of mine. In fact, you two wouldn’t even have met if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Really? How do you figure that?”
“She was on her way to Canyon View to drop off a couple of boxes of books we’d ordered from back east. Now tell me. You said you had a friend who was ill?”
“A firefighter I worked with. Finding out about him was a shock, but then to find out Holly’s in basically the same condition . . . I don’t even know what the odds of that are. I’ve been trying to reconcile this whole—”
“He tried to commit suicide? Your friend?”
“Fell off a roof. Marge, I feel so sick about Holly. She had