Octopus’s Garden

Chapter 1October 1990

It was early afternoon as Marie drove past the stone wall at the entrance and up the long driveway toward her house. She loved upstate New York at this time of year, with its beautiful autumn hues and crisp air. There was a hint of the season’s first snow in the air, and she was looking forward to it. It seemed like the perfect day to forget about her past problems and present responsibilities. She had closed her photography studio early to come home and bake.

October 31 was drawing near. While most people saw this day as a time to scare each other and send their children out trick-or-treating, it held special significance for her. She celebrated the Wiccan holiday of Samhain. In the past, she had always objected to the fact that this revered ancient holiday had been distorted into a somewhat meaningless day. But long ago, she had given up what could have turned into a personal crusade, realizing that changing things now would be like taking Santa Claus away from children. Samhain was only a week away, and she wanted to be prepared both physically and spiritually.

It had taken years to put the tragic past behind her, but today she was having a good day. However, as Marie stepped out of her car, a black sedan and a police car pulled up behind her. Her mood changed instantly.

The female officer approached her. Marie recognized her as an officer she had dealt with a few times because of Jeffrey. He had never been in serious trouble, but Marie wasn’t on the best of terms with any of the local police. Even though it had been ten years since Danny had disappeared, she felt she had been branded for life in their eyes.

“Are you Marie Costello?” the officer asked.

“Yes, you already know that,” Marie answered, a little annoyed.

This woman knew exactly who she was. Marie knew why they were there but decided to play along.

“Oh my God, Jeffrey! What’s happened to my son?” she asked, feigning panic.

She knew her son was all right and at work. He was an assistant karate teacher for a class of eight-year-olds. There wasn’t much that could happen to him at work, unless there happened to be a future superhero among the kids who decided to go berserk.

“Your son is fine,” said the detective standing next to the female officer. “I’m Detective Dennis Lyons. I would like to ask you a few questions about another matter.”

Marie continued to play naive.

“If it’s about my husband, Danny, I still don’t know where he is. The DA knows that. It’s been ten years, for God’s sake. I have nothing to do with the Aiello family. Why can’t you people just leave me the hell alone?”

She walked to the trunk of her car as she spoke and removed her camera bag. She had brought darkroom work home with her and planned to work on it that night. She had a feeling things might not go as planned.

“Mrs. Costello,” the detective continued, “can we step inside your house and discuss this?”

“Sure.”

She walked into the house with the detective and the uniformed officer close behind her.

“Have a seat. I’ll be right with you.” Marie pointed to the couch. “Don’t touch anything unless you have a warrant.”

As she deposited her camera bag in her darkroom, she wondered what had gone wrong. She thought she had covered all her bases when she made her trip to Boston. She took a deep breath, asked her spirit guide for support, and returned to the living room.

Entering the room, Marie noticed the detective studying the photos on the fireplace mantel. There were pictures of both Joey and Danny with her and Jeffrey. She felt a tinge of resentment. He was looking at her life in a few short glances.

Settling into the chair next to the fireplace, she faced them.

“So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked sarcastically.

The detective was a little taken aback by her attitude. Most people would be intimidated by police questioning. This woman seemed accustomed to it.

“Do you know a Karen Ryan?” he asked.

“No, I don’t. Should I?”

She knew he was talking about her old roommate, Karen, but until that fateful day a few months ago, Marie had known her as Karen Osborne.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Maybe this will refresh your memory.”

He handed her a picture of Karen standing next to a man Marie assumed was her husband.

She nodded.

“Why, of course I know her. That’s my old roommate, Karen, from years ago. But her name was Osborne.”

“Right,” the detective agreed. “Of course, she changed her name when she married.”

“Hmm.” Marie glanced at the picture again. “Nice-looking guy. I guess she finally did okay for herself.”

“Let me get to the point, Marie.” He hesitated for a moment. “May I call you Marie?”

He smiled at her.

“Sure, Dennis.”

She shot him a sarcastic smile and handed back the picture.

“This old roommate of yours, Karen,” he went on, studying her face, “was found shot to death in her kitchen this past May, in the suburbs of Boston.”

“Oh my God.”

Marie put her hand to her throat. She hoped her little touch of drama gave the impression of shock.

“That’s horrible. Did they catch the guy?” she asked. “Was it her husband?”

“No, we don’t think it was her husband,” Dennis said. “He was away on a business trip at the time.”

“So why are you here talking to me?”

“Because,” Dennis said, leaning toward her, “on that day in May, you took a flight to Boston. You paid Karen Ryan a visit, didn’t you?”

Marie realized she must have been seen at Karen’s. She had thought none of the neighbors had seen her. There was only one course of action for her to take at the moment.

“This is serious questioning. Maybe I should contact my attorney.”

“Might be a good idea,” Dennis told her.

“So I guess it might also be a good idea for you to leave now.”

She was much colder toward Detective Lyons now.

“Unless you’re going to arrest me.”

“No, but we will be in touch,” he said as he walked out the door. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Marie watched from the security of her front doorway as the cars drove down her driveway and through the front gate to the street. She picked up the telephone, called Anthony, and told him about her visitors. He said he would contact Kevin, the family attorney, immediately.

“Angie and I are coming up. We can be there in an hour,” Anthony told her. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Thanks,” Marie said. “That would be great.”

While she waited for Anthony and Angie to arrive, Marie made a fire in the fireplace, not so much for warmth as for the relaxing state of mind it put her in. She began looking through a box of old photos. She found one of Joey and her with Jeffrey when he was about a year old. They were all cheek to cheek, with a smiling baby Jeffrey showing off his first tooth. Marie realized that had probably been the happiest time of her life.

She found another picture of Danny with Jeffrey on his shoulders outside the Museum of Natural History. These two men had loved her and Jeffrey. She had loved them both in return. Now they were gone from her life forever.

Clutching the pictures, she lay down on the couch and started to cry. She didn’t know whether she was crying for the memories she held or because she might be going to jail. She had thought she would never be blamed for Karen’s death. Yet there was a calmness about her. Somehow, she believed she would get away with this.

She gazed into the fire and started dreaming.

“Is it that you doubted my sense of justice?” Geoffrey asked her. “You could have told me of your plans. Did it not occur to you that perhaps I would have helped you and the other members of your coven? There was no need for sleeping potions.”

“Forgive me for the potion,” Anna cried. “I meant you no harm.”

“I know that, my love.”

He put his arms around her. Seeing her cry always softened him.

“If you had intended me harm, I fear I would surely be dead by now. You are not a weak woman. That is one of the reasons I love you so. Besides, a little extra sleep never hurt anyone.”

He kissed her on the top of her head.

“Enough talk of past events. At the moment, all I desire is to feel you next to me.”

“Marie.”

Angie gently shook her as she lay asleep on the couch.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Marie muttered as she swung her legs to the floor, making room for Anthony and Angie to sit down. “I’m just a little tired from being stressed out.”

She realized she had just had a past-life dream. She wanted to write it down, but with Angie and Anthony present, she couldn’t. Under the circumstances, there were matters that took priority. The past had waited since the 1400s; it would have to wait a few more hours.

“You finally did it, didn’t you?” Anthony asked, sitting next to her. “You waited all these years, but you finally went up there and whacked that bitch.”

Both Angie and Anthony looked at her, waiting for a reply. She knew she had to tell them the truth.

“Yes, I did.”

Marie bit her lower lip. It was strange, but she felt like smiling. At last, she had told someone what she had done. It was a relief to be able to talk about it. She told them how, on that spring morning a few months earlier, she had knocked on Karen’s door. She explained how, over a cup of tea, she had shot and killed her old roommate.

“Marie.”

Anthony took her hand.

“You know the family has people who do these kinds of things. You didn’t have to do it yourself.”

“Yes, I did have to do this myself,” Marie disagreed. “I had to. You know that. I’ve known for a long time that Karen was the one who hired Vinnie to kill Joey.”

Anthony shook his head.

“For you, there are at least a dozen guys out there who would have done this for free.”

“I know that,” Marie told him. “But it was me, not those dozen guys out there, who held Joey while he lay bleeding in the hallway. It was me who sat in the hospital for two weeks, waiting for my husband to die. And it’s me who still feels the pain and heartbreak. So it had to be me who took the final revenge.”

“I guess you’re right,” Anthony agreed. “Since it’s done and we can’t undo it, let’s deal with the legal aspects.”

“Come on.”

Angie held a white bakery box tied with red-and-white string in front of Marie.

“Into the kitchen for tea and cannoli.”

Marie had to smile. Over all the years, Angie had never changed. She thought tea and cannoli would make any problem seem better. In a way, it actually worked. Those few minutes of eating pastries made the world go away. However, this was one problem Marie knew would not go away that easily.

“So, what do you think?” Marie asked. “Will I get indicted under Massachusetts law or New York law?”

“Massachusetts,” Anthony told her.

“Does Massachusetts have a death penalty?”

“Don’t worry. I don’t think there’s a death penalty up there. There are too many of those Democratic liberals in Massachusetts.”

He smiled, trying to make light of the situation.

“Unless, of course, they happen to find out you’re one of those Wiccan witch women, in which case there’s a strong possibility they may try to burn you at the stake or something.”

“That’s not funny!”

Angie lightly hit her husband on the side of the head.

“Yes, it is.”

Marie smiled weakly. She knew Anthony’s joke was meant only to cheer her up.

“It’s not the death penalty I’m worried about. It’s being in jail. You guys will watch over Jeffrey for me, won’t you?”

“Of course we will,” Angie told her. “But ya know, anything could happen to change things.”

Marie realized that Jeffrey needed to know everything that was going on. It was crucial that he hear it from her as soon as she saw him. She was certain that if she were arrested, it would eventually be in all the newspapers.

This was a day Marie had planned for and rehearsed. It had been simple to do when it wasn’t real. As a single mother, she had faced many situations over the years in which she had bad news to break to her son. There was, of course, telling him that his stepfather, Danny, would not be coming home anymore. There was also the time their beloved dog, Odin, had died. The death of pets, and these days even the absence of a parent, were expected parts of life.

Now she would be face to face with her sixteen-year-old son, telling him she was a murderer. It was something she couldn’t do alone. That evening, Anthony sat with Marie and told Jeffrey what his mother had done and what she was facing.

Much to Marie’s surprise, Jeffrey thought she had done the right thing. He vowed to stand beside her and even offered to lie and say she had been with him at the time of the murder. It made her realize that she hadn’t shielded her son from the Aiello family as much as she had wanted to over the years. That would have been impossible without losing the friends who had stood by her through the best and worst of times.