“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Anyway,” she said. “I saw one of the oscars eat the first little goldfish and I started to cry. The foster dad told me to toughen up. ‘It’s the food chain,’ he said. ‘It’s life.’ But Renee wasn’t having any of it. These poor goldfish were darting around that tank and the two giant oscars were scooping them up into their jaws and she told the foster dad—his name was Bill, that’s it... Bill Grumley. God, I haven’t thought of that name in forever...” She took another bite of her toast, chewed, and swallowed.
Quentin said, “What did Renee tell him?”
“‘You’re heartless.’”
“Huh?”
“That’s what she said. She told Bill Grumley, ‘You’re heartless.’ And he laughed at her... ‘Nature is heartless, girl. You’d best get used to it.’” A shadow passed over Nicola’s face, clouds massing outside the diner. Her gaze traveled beyond Quentin, to some distant point over his shoulder, in the past, a million miles away. “Renee woke me up in the middle of the night. She was holding a paper cup.She shined a flashlight on it and showed me. There was one goldfish inside, swimming around in about four inches of water. ‘Those bastards got full,’ she said. ‘He was the only one left. I saved him.’”
“What did you do with the fish?”
“We sneaked downstairs, out the back door. I knew we’d get in so much trouble if the foster dad or his wife caught us. That was one of the rules. Probably the most important one. No leaving the house on our own.”
“But you left anyway.”
“She left,” she said. “I followed.”
“You were younger.”
“She was braver,” she said. “We were barefoot, in our nightgowns. There was a park down the street. It had a pond. She dumped the cup into the pond and the goldfish swam away.”
“That must have felt good.”
“To me, it felt wonderful.”
“But to Renee?”
“Renee,” she said. “Renee... When we were walking back to the house she was very quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t speak. I assumed she was frightened, you know?”
“Frightened?”
“It was a gossipy neighborhood. Even though I was just a kid, I knew we probably wouldn’t get away with it. Someone would notice two girls in their nightgowns, walking to the park at three in the morning.”
“Of course.”
“That wasn’t it, though,” Nicola said. “Renee was upset about all the fish that had been eaten. She was upset because she hadn’t been able to save the others.”
“That’s very touching.”
Nicola smiled, her face again going familiar. “Quentin?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you doing this podcast?”
“Well... I did tell you about the call from that man.”
“I mean... why not something scarier—Ted Bundy or Charles Manson? Or something unsolved like the Zodiac? Why not something more recent? Why do an entire podcast on these obscure murders just because you got a call from some lunatic?”
Quentin swallowed his coffee. It wasn’t part of his plan, answering questions like this one. But there was something about Nicola Crane—the sunshiny voice, maybe, or the deep, caring lines in her face, the warmth in those strangely bright eyes or the unshakable feeling that he knew her from somewhere, someplace... Whatever the reason, he felt eager to do the talking for a change.Do I want to confess? Is that it?
Quentin forgot about the voice recorder and talked. He tried to explain what it was like to grow up with a mother who never hugged him and only held his hand at the cemetery and seemed indifferent to his presence in her life. He told her about his many attempts to get Kate’s attention—first by getting good grades, then by getting bad ones. He talked about how strung out his mother had been, so wasted she often forgot to feed him or clean the house or make sure he got off to school okay. How even in rare periods of sobriety, she’d been completely disinterested in her own son, and how different that all might have been, were it not for April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy and what they had done to Kate’s family.
Through it all, Nicola ate her toast and sipped her coffee, nodding occasionally but saying nothing. When he was done, Nicola watched his face, her thin lips pulled tight, her bright eyes appraising. “Do you think this podcast is going to help you?” she said. “Is that why you’re doing it?”
“I don’t know.”
