Read Online Don't Cry Now by Joy Fielding - Free Book Online Page B

a picture of a topless Cindy Crawford. An acoustic guitar, its surface scratched, one string broken, lay on the brown carpet beside a discarded flannel shirt, an open pack of Camel cigarettes protruding from its pocket. A large rectangular glass tank sat on the sill beneath the bedroom window. A large snake lay stretched out inside it.
    â€œMy God,” Bonnie whispered. “What on earth is that?”
    â€œThat’s L’il Abner,” Sam answered proudly, his face noticeably animated for the first time since he’d come home. “He’s only eighteen months old, but he’s already over four feet long. Boa constrictors can grow to nine, maybe even twelve, feet. Longer in the wild.”
    Captain Mahoney walked past Bonnie to the tank. “He’s a beauty,” he said. “What do you feed him?”
    â€œLive rats,” Sam answered.
    Bonnie grabbed her stomach, fought down the urge to throw up. Surely they weren’t really standing in the room of a young boy who had just learned that his mother had been murdered, listening to him talk about feeding liverats to his baby boa constrictor. It couldn’t be happening.
    â€œYour mother didn’t mind you having such an exotic animal as a pet?” Captain Mahoney asked.
    â€œShe just hated if the rats escaped,” Sam said.
    Bonnie looked from her husband to his son, straining to find a resemblance between the two. It was there, but only faintly, in the abstract as opposed to the particular, manifesting itself more in their general posture than their individual features, the way each tilted his head when asked a question, the slight pursing of their lips when they smiled, the way each absently rubbed at the side of his nose when distracted.
    Perhaps there’d been a mistake, Bonnie postulated. Perhaps there’d been one of those awful errors at the hospital that you sometimes heard about, and Sam and another baby had been switched at birth, and this wasn’t really Rod’s son at all. Rod’s son was a normal young man with ordinary brown hair and no gold loop sticking through his nostril, a boy who cried when told of his mother’s death, and liked dogs and goldfish.
    â€œI’m ready,” Lauren announced from the doorway, a large tote bag over her shoulder, a small overnight bag in her hand.
    â€œWhat’s going to happen to the house?” Sam asked.
    â€œIt’s too early to think about that now,” Rod answered.
    â€œI don’t want to sell it,” Lauren told him.
    â€œIt’s too early to think about that now,” Rod repeated.
    â€œHow am I going to get to school?” Again, panic filled Lauren’s eyes.
    â€œWe won’t worry about school for a few days,” Bonnie told her.
    â€œI’ll drive you when we get Mom’s car,” Sam answered, turning to Captain Mahoney. “When can I get my mom’s car?”
    If Captain Mahoney was surprised by the question, he didn’t let on. “We can probably have it back to you within the week.”
    Detective Kritzic entered the room carrying a small filefolder that she promptly opened for the captain’s perusal. Captain Mahoney took several moments to scan the contents, glancing over at Bonnie and Rod periodically. “Why don’t we go into the hall,” he suggested casually when he was through reading. Too casually, Bonnie thought, following the officers out of the bedroom.
    â€œDid you find something?” Rod asked.
    â€œYou didn’t tell us that your wife’s insurance policy carried a double indemnity clause,” Captain Mahoney stated.
    â€œDouble indemnity?” Bonnie repeated, twisting the words around her tongue, not comfortable with the sound.
    â€œIn the event of either accident or murder, the death benefits double,” Captain Mahoney explained. “That would make your ex-wife’s death worth half a million dollars.”
    â€œSo it would,”