FiFty Fifty

Chapter Fifty - Three

EDDIE

The house on Franklin Street looked quiet. There was an old van parked outside. I glanced through the rear door windows of the van and saw boxes stacked inside, and something else, too. I stood for a second in the night air, listening. The city was quiet for once, just the distant traffic.
I approached the house. The front door was open. Even so, I knocked on the door and hollered a greeting as I came inside.
The hallway had a lamp burning on a side table. I called out again, and moved forward until I saw the kitchen and lounge.
Sofia stood in the lounge, in semi-darkness, the light from another lamp burning on the table caught in her eyes, making them look ablaze.
'Eddie, what are you doing here?' she said.
In front of her, on a coffee table, was a chessboard. The pieces laid out as if a game was in full flow.
'I came by to see how you were doing.'
'How did you know I was here?'
'There was no answer at your apartment. This house is yours now, I guess,
and I thought you might be here. I saw a van outside, are you moving in?'
'I thought I'd move a few things into the house. I wanted to keep busy,' she
said.
'Is that your chessboard? Did I interrupt a game? Is someone else here?' I
asked.
'No one else is here. Yeah, this is my board. This is my sister's game. The
game we played when we were kids, and didn't get to finish.'
She reached down, moved a knight.
'And now it's over,' she said. 'I've won.'
The light seemed to move deep into her eyes, making them luminous, like a
predator caught stalking its prey in the moonlight. The frightened, meek Sofia was gone. Her sister was awaiting sentencing for Frank's murder, and Sofia was in the clear. She no longer had anything to fear. Her confidence all but glowed around her like a halo.
'You definitely won,' I said, nodding. 'You must really hate Alexandra.'
'I hated her long before she killed my father. She took everything from me
 
when she pushed Mom down the stairs,' said Sofia. 'It was an accident. A stupid accident. She didn't mean to kill her. I wasn't angry at Alexandra for taking our mother away. It's that it happened too soon. I hated my mom. I wanted to beat Mom at chess one day. I wanted to grow up, and for my mom to know I was better than her. Better than Alexandra, too. I wanted to hurt Mom, and she took that away from me. I couldn't hurt her in death, even though I tried. Then Dad sent us away. I lost him, too. She deserves to rot for what she did.'
There was a seismic change in Sofia. She looked and held herself differently. I felt like I was really seeing her for the first time. Things were beginning to make more sense. The real reason for the hatred between her and Alexandra was clear now. When she said she'd tried to hurt her mother in death, I knew exactly what that meant. Alexandra pushed Jane at the top of the stairs, but it was Sofia who bit her after she was dead.
Sofia shook her head, as if coming out of a dream. 'Do you want some coffee?'
'Thank you, that would be great. There's been some developments and I wanted to fill you in.'
She led me to the kitchen, turned on the rest of the lights. There was a new coffee machine sitting on the counter, fresh out of the box that lay beside it. Frank never drank coffee, she told me. He preferred tea toward the end. She filled the bun flask with water, plugged in the machine, filled it with fresh grounds and set it to percolate.
'Killers always make mistakes,' I said.
'And you found one?' said Sofia, her tone even and inquisitive.
'I found two. She left a witness alive. Someone who could identify her.'
She opened a cupboard, looking for coffee mugs. There were none.
'They took all the mugs,' she said. She opened more cupboards, found
nothing.
'I guess coffee is off the menu,' I said.
'Looks like it. Sorry, what were you saying about a witness?' She came
around the small breakfast diner in the center of the kitchen, and stood just a few feet from me. She still wore a long coat and boots, even though the house felt warm.
'The guy she paid to put the drugs in Frank's food. He used to work in Jimmy's restaurant.'
'Oh my god! And what did he tell you?'
'He's talking to the cops, right now. He told me he was paid to do it.' She looked down at the tiled floor while she processed this.
'I still can't believe she did it. She's my sister,' said Sofia.