A Playdate With Death Read Free Page B

severe arrhythmia. Bobby had once told me that methamphetamine was so toxic to him nowadays that even holding the stuff and having it absorb through his fingers could trigger a heart attack. The risks to him of falling off the wagon were astronomical. I’d been terribly worried that Betsy’s weakness would be contagious. But, in the end, he’d proven me wrong. He’d gotten her back on the program and never fallen off himself. So I had believed, until that morning.
    “Betsy, why were the police here? Did they tell you why they need you to make a statement?”
    “No. They just said I have to.”
    “But it’s a suicide, right? Bobby killed himself?”
    “I don’t know. I mean, that’s what they told me this morning. They said they found him in the car with a gun in his hand, and that he’d shot himself in the head.”
    “Was it his gun?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean, he doesn’t have a gun. At least I don’t think he does.”
    “And just now, when the cops were here, did they tell you they were considering other things? Like maybe that someone had killed him?”
    She sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “They didn’t tell me anything.”
    “Betsy, do you think Bobby killed himself?” I asked flat out.
    She shook her head and wailed, “I don’t know. None of this makes any sense. I mean, why would he kill himself?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “But then, I don’t know him as well as you do. Had anything happened between you two? Had you guys been getting along?” The truth was, I didn’t expect Betsy to confide in me. I didn’t know her that well, and for all I knew, Bobby had told her that, like his parents, I’d encouraged him to break up with her.
    “Things were great. Great,” she said firmly, rubbing the tears away from her eyes. “We’d set a date for the wedding; we’d even picked a rabbi.”
    “A rabbi? But you’re not Jewish, are you?”
    “Bobby’s parents really wanted us to have a rabbi. Theirguy said that he’d do it, if we went to premarital counseling and if Bobby did all the tests and stuff.”
    “Tests?”
    “Yeah, you know. Genetic testing for Tay-Sachs. The rabbi says he makes all Jews who he marries get Tay-Sachs testing. Just in case.”
    Tay-Sachs disease is a birth defect that is carried by something like one in thirty Jews of European descent. If two carriers have children together, they have a one in four chance of giving birth to a baby who will die of Tay-Sachs. Tay-Sachs is always fatal; generally, children die by age five after being desperately ill for most of their lives. Nowadays, there’s a simple blood test to determine if you are a carrier. Most Jewish couples automatically gets tested, but Peter and I hadn’t bothered, since Peter wasn’t Jewish. Both of us would have had to be carriers for there to be any danger, so we’d never even considered it.
    “Bobby had it,” Betsy said.
    “Had it? You mean Tay-Sachs? He was a carrier?”
    “Yeah. We found out a few months ago, right before my . . . my arrest. I mean, it’s no big deal that he had it, because of course I don’t have it since I’m not Jewish. I mean, it
wasn’t
a big deal.” She sniffed. “I guess none of that matters anymore.”
    I didn’t answer.
    “What am I going to do?” she asked, turning to me and peering into my eyes.
    I shook my head helplessly. “I don’t know, Betsy. Get through every day, one day at a time, I guess.”
    “One day at a time? You sound like my goddamn sponsor,” she said. “You sound like Bobby.”
    I sat with Betsy for a while longer, leaving only when her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor and a few other friends from the group arrived.

Two
    W HEN I got home from Betsy’s, I found my kids and my husband hurling themselves around the living room wearing pink tutus; Peter’s was around his neck. Ruby had a collection of tulle, lace, and ribbon that rivaled that of the Joffrey Ballet. From the moment she was