The Matriarch by Sharon; Hawes Page B

smirk.
    “We have to go,” Charlotte says, and I know she’s shaken and close to tears.
    We stand, and Carla jumps to her feet. “Bring me some figs, Charlotte, will you?” She’s almost shouting. “I need them.”
    The word
need
catches my attention. Why would anyone
need
a fig?
    “Okay, Carla, I’ll—”
    “Carla,” I say, interrupting Charlotte. “What do you mean you
need
figs? What do they do for you, anyway?”
    “They’re so sweet … they make it better,” she says, frowning. “Energy, power … like that. Will you, Charlotte?”
    “Of course,” Charlotte says, and we leave.
    I buy us lunch—burgers and Cokes to go—and I drive Charlotte back to the Russo home. We sit in the kitchen and eat our lunch. There’s a note from Shelly on the table there saying she’s in town at the market.
    I see a saucer with a few cigarette butts in it on the counter. “You smoke?”
    “No. Shelly does, but she’s trying to quit. She’s not doing too well on that at the moment.” She shakes her head. “That
thing
is not Carla Russo,” Charlotte continues. “She doesn’t even seem human.” She takes a swallow of her Coke. “Brandon Sims called yesterday, Carla’s attorney. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do. He said she had seen him about a divorce and he had been very surprised. He said another woman, a neighbor of Carla’s, had just filed for divorce as well. Two on the same day kind of threw him.”
    It throws me as well. Another chill breezes across my neck. Coincidence? Carla’s murder of Dante is not only horrific but also impossible to understand. Something … something horrific had happened in their marriage. But what? What could have caused Carla to file for divorce and then brutally murder her husband?
    “I wonder if there’s more? More divorces.”
    “What, an epidemic?” Charlotte says with a smile.
    “Well, something’s sure as hell out of whack with Carla. Maybe this other woman as well. I’ve heard of crazy stuff like that, haven’t you? A person suddenly goes nuts because of exposure to some kind of chemical additive. Maybe a pesticide of some sort?”
    Charlotte rises, gathers the remains of our lunch, and tosses it into the garbage. “Are you thinking of that case where Harvey Milk was killed by a man who claimed he was unbalanced from consuming too much sugar?”
    I nod. “The Twinkie defense. It’s a myth, of course, but it had a few believers a while back.” We take our Cokes and settle ourselves onto the couch in the living room. “Okay,” I say, “just for the hell of it, let’s say an overdose of some weird additive creates a negative energy in a person without him, or her, even realizing it. It builds and builds until it overwhelms the person. So then what happens? Where does it go?”
    “Are you suggesting that Carla had that negative energy in her when she killed Dante?”
    “Well, maybe. It’s a theory that works as well as any. At least at this point in time. Something changed Carla. Did you notice her eyes today? A couple of times it was as if the real Carla was in there looking out at us. Like she was saying, ‘Holy shit, what am I doing in this crazy woman’s body?’”
    “I know,” Charlotte says, “I noticed that too. Like there was a different woman inside her.”
    I put my Coke down and take her hand into both of mine. “How did you get this scar?” I stroke the white line that travels over the back of her hand at the base of her fingers.
    “I was a kid,” she says, “helping my dad clear out some brush in our back yard. He had a hatchet and was using it on a stubborn cluster of weeds. My hand got in the way.”
    “Jesus. He didn’t see it?”
    “I guess I just kind of stuck it out there.” She gives me a nervous laugh, but I know it’s not funny to her. “My little finger was hanging off my hand by a thread. We had a wild ride to the hospital, my dad speeding through red lights and me jamming that finger in place