Light from a Distant Star by Morris Mary Mcgarry

Author:Morris, Mary Mcgarry [Morris, Mary Mcgarry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307451873
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-09-13T05:00:00+00:00

SHE PUT IN two hours with Jessica. Two rather pleasant hours, in the beginning. She knew the drill, with Nellie’s arrival, Jessica would hand her a can of Cherry Coke and the remote. All Jessica wanted to talk about was the murder, but having again declared herself the star witness, she felt buffered, protected. It was the official legal moat no one could cross, though Jessica would keep trying.

“Well, tell me about him then, that guy, the one that killed her,” she said, when the next commercial came on. They were downstairs, catching up on Survivor episodes.

“I told you, I can’t.”

“I remember him. He was that guy, right, the one that saved Henry?”

“Yeah.” Safe enough. Unwilling to forfeit control of the TV, Nellie would have to answer some questions. She aimed the remote, ready to click back to the show. She’d been scrolling through the ads.

“They’re probably gonna electrocute him, right?”

“I don’t know.” A chill ripped through her.

“That’s what they usually do. Or an injection. I saw that once. Or gas. They, like, seep it into this, like, box thingie with him in it.” She hit the button and the show resumed.

“Or poison. Like in his food or something.”

She’d stopped listening.

Off on one of her riffs, Jessica leaned close. “Wanna know a secret?” she whispered. She got up and closed the door, then hurried back to the sofa. “Well? Do you or don’t you?”

“What?” She tilted her head, trying not to miss any of the show.

“I did that. I mixed all these powders from my mother’s pills. So now I have my own supply.”

“Of what?”

“Poison. Wanna see it?”

“That’s weird. Stop being so weird, will you?”

She laughed. “You don’t know, maybe I put some in your soda.”

“Jesus, Jessica, here.” She stood up and flipped the remote onto the sofa.

“I’m only kidding. Don’t go, c’mon!”

Nellie sat back down, but couldn’t help feeling Jessica had meant it.

They watched the show in silence, while beside her Jessica twisted her hand backward to better gnaw on a hangnail.

“What if he didn’t do it though,” she mused, and Nellie hit the pause button. “You ever think about that? Like, how, maybe people just thought he did because he said things or did things, or maybe they just didn’t like him, so they just blame things on him? Like sometimes the way people treat me. I mean, like, my own family even. It’s, like, always my fault. Everything. I’m just one of those people, you know what I mean?”

“No,” Nellie said. But she did know. It was the same in school, too. Jessica was like a magnet for negative feelings. And so, in a way, had been Max. “You just think about that stuff too much,” she said.

“Yeah.” Jessica settled back with her chubby arms behind her head and her feet up on the coffee table. “Like about how to kill people. Put them out of my misery.”

“That’s it!” Nellie jumped up and hurried upstairs.

“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Cooper called after her.

“I have to go pick Henry up,” she called back from the door.

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