Not a Happy Family

by Shari Lapena

  Still, Catherine is her best friend. Rose trembles a little as they embrace. They must not find out what she’s done.

  * * *

  • • •

  reyes watches jenna merton walk into the interview room in ripped jeans and a black leather biker jacket. He’s struck again at how different the three Merton children are from each other. He thinks fleetingly of his own two kids—also both completely different from one another in looks, temperament, and interests. And then he directs all his focus on the woman in front of him. After a few introductory matters, he gets right to the point.

  “You and Jake Brenner were the last people known to see your parents alive,” he begins.

  She raises her eyebrows. “We were only five minutes behind the others.”

  Reyes gives her a long look. “Except you weren’t. You didn’t leave shortly after seven o’clock, like the others. You left about an hour later, just after eight o’clock.”

  She stiffens slightly but remains silent, as if considering what to say.

  He waits. They stare at one another. “You were seen,” he says, “by a neighbor walking his dog down his drive shortly after eight o’clock. He recognized your car. He’s seen it often enough.”

  She takes a deep breath and says, “Fine, whatever.”

  “What happened in that extra hour?”

  She frowns, shakes her head. “Nothing much. We talked a bit. I guess I lost track of time.”

  He pushes her on it, but she sticks to her story. He changes tack. “Did you go out again at all that night?”

  “No. We drove back to my place. Jake stayed the night. We went to bed.”

  After Jenna has been fingerprinted and left, Reyes says to Barr, “We have to check all their alibis.”

  * * *

  • • •

  audrey almost decides to call it a day. It’s uncomfortable—and mostly boring—to sit in a car in a parking lot. She’s been here for hours. Catherine had seen her—she’ll tell the others that she’s keeping an eye on them. Good.

  She knows the detectives have spoken to Catherine and Jenna now, as well as Dan and Irena. She thinks that’s probably it. She’s about to start the car when she sees a familiar figure walking toward the front doors of the police station. She leans closer to the windshield, watching. She recognizes Dan’s wife, Lisa. They must be checking up on Dan, seeing if he has an alibi. Pleased, she settles back down in her seat.

  * * *

  • • •

  lisa swallows her fear and walks into the interview room. Her heart is pounding. She’s taking a risk. Dan hadn’t wanted her to come. He told her to refuse, to wait until he had a lawyer. They have an appointment later this afternoon with a top criminal lawyer, Richard Klein, thanks to Catherine.

  But she held her ground. “Dan,” she said, “I’ll go in and tell them you were with me all night. That’s it. How will it look if I refuse to talk to them at all?”

  So here she is. She knows what to say and what not to say.

  They begin with generalities, but Detective Reyes soon says, “We know something happened at Easter dinner. Do you want to tell us about that?”

  This is unexpected. She wonders who might have let something slip and shakes her head, frowns as if she doesn’t know what he means. “No, it was a perfectly ordinary Easter dinner.”

  “Did you or your husband go out again anytime that night after you returned home?” Reyes asks.

  She knew he would ask this; it’s why she’s here. She says, perfectly convincingly, “No. After we got home from his parents, we both stayed in. All night.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ted is uncomfortable; he can feel himself sweating—under his arms, down his back. He’s furious at Catherine for putting him in this position. He couldn’t very well refuse to come when they asked him in. Every one of them has been called in to the police station today, like ants marching in to a picnic. And they’re all having their fingerprints taken.

  “Just tell them I was home all night,” Catherine said when they were finally alone. “It’s not hard.”

  “You should have told them the truth,” he shot back.

  “Yes, I probably should have,” she admitted with heat. “But I didn’t. I made a mistake. Now the question is, are you going to make it worse, or are you going to help me?”

  He’d agreed that sticking to her original story was probably the best course of action, given the circumstances. So here he is. He’s a bit annoyed at her, too, for agreeing so quickly to pay for Dan’s legal fees. What if they run into the hundreds of thousands? But it’s her money—she’s the one inheriting a fortune, not him, so there’s not much he can say.

  But he’s a confident man, and he knows he will be able to come across well in the interview. He knows Catherine didn’t murder her parents.

  “Thank you for coming in,” Reyes says.

  Ted denies anything unusual happened at the dinner that night. They’ve all agreed to stick to this—that it had been a pleasant evening and there were no conflicts. Finally Reyes asks the expected question. “After you arrived home from the Mertons’ on the evening of Easter Sunday, did you go out again any time after that?”

  “No.”

  “What about your wife?”

  He shakes his head. “No. She was home with me all night.”

  * * *

  • • •

  once ted leaves the police station, Audrey decides to call it a day. It’s been so frustrating to be stuck in the parking lot when all the action is going on inside that building. The only place more interesting today is probably Catherine’s or Dan’s house, and she can’t get inside there either.

  She checks her phone one more time and quickly looks at the local online news. Police teams are now conducting a search of the river near Brecken Hill, looking for evidence in the Merton murders. She pulls out of the parking lot.

  26

  Audrey stands looking out at the Hudson River. A cool breeze is ruffling its dark surface. There’s a police boat out on the water, bobbing gently, where divers in wet suits are at work. Uniformed officers are searching the edge of the river. Audrey can see the two bridges of Aylesford, one to the south of her, one to the north, spanning the river to the Catskill Mountains on the other side. It would be a pretty, peaceful scene, but it’s marred by what’s going on here.

  Audrey is part of a small crowd watching the police activity in the pleasant spring weather. The media is here too. She observes silently for a while, standing near a woman in her thirties who has the demeanor of a professional. Audrey wonders if she might be a journalist. Then she notices the logo of the Aylesford Record on her windbreaker, confirming it. “What are they doing?” she asks the woman.

  “It’s the Merton murder case,” the woman replies, glancing at her briefly, then turning her attention back to the river. “They’re not saying much, but they’re obviously looking for evidence. The murder weapon, probably. The knife.” She’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “And the bloody clothes. A murder that violent, the killer must have had to get rid of his clothes. They must be looking for those too.”

  Good point, Audrey thinks to herself. It annoys her that she doesn’t know any more about the actual crime than the reporter, and she’s family. Fred was her brother, and yet she hasn’t been let in on anything. The police are saying nothing, and the family isn’t talking to the press. She tries to tamp down the malignant fury she’s feeling toward them all.

  “Is there anything new?” Audrey asks, hoping the reporter might share some tidbit.

  The woman beside her shakes her head and then shrugs. “I bet they know more than they’re letting on. Wealthy family, you know. They always get preferential treatment, more privacy. More respect.”

  Without planning to, Audrey says suddenly, “I know the family.”

 
; The woman turns to her and for the first time looks at her with interest. “You do? How?”

  “Fred Merton was my brother.”

  The woman appraises her, as if trying to discern whether she’s some kind of crackpot. Maybe she makes a quick judgment about Audrey’s age and her appearance and realizes she might be telling the truth. “Really? Do you want to talk about it?”

  Audrey hesitates, casting her eyes to the police boat out on the river.

  She shakes her head and turns to go.

  “Wait,” the other woman says. “Let me give you my card.” She hands Audrey a business card. “If you want to talk, call me. Anytime. I’d really like to talk to you, if you are who you say you are.”

  Audrey takes the card and looks at it. Robin Fontaine. She looks up and offers the woman her hand to shake. “Audrey Stancik. But my maiden name was Merton.” Then she turns and heads back to her car.

  * * *

  • • •

  reyes studies the younger man across from him. Jake Brenner has the starving-artist look down—ripped jeans, wrinkled T-shirt, battered leather jacket, two-day-old stubble. He’s trying hard to be cool, to look as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, but Reyes can tell he’s not as comfortable as he would like to seem. He smiles too much, for one thing. And his thumb drums the surface of the table in an irregular, annoying way.

  Reyes says, “Thank you for coming all the way up from the city to talk to us. How did you get here, by the way?” he asks casually.

  “The train.”

  Reyes nods. “We just want to ask you a few questions about the night of April twenty-first, Easter Sunday.” Jake nods. “You were with Jenna Merton that day, at her parents’ house for dinner, is that right?”

  Jake looks at them steadily. “Yes.”

  “What was it like, that dinner?”

  Jake takes a deep breath in, lets it out. “Well, it was a bit fancy. I was worried about using the right fork.” He smiles again. “They have a lot of money, you know. They seemed nice enough.”

  “Everybody get along all right?”

  He nods. “I think so.”

  “Okay.” Reyes says, “I understand you and Jenna were the last to leave the house that night.” Jake seems to freeze briefly, then relaxes. Reyes adds, “We know you and Jenna left about an hour later than the others. Why is that?”

  No smiles now.

  “What did you and Jenna do in that extra hour inside the Merton house?” Reyes asks conversationally.

  “Nothing,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “We just talked. They wanted to get to know me better.”

  “Really?” Reyes says. He leans forward. “What did you talk about, exactly?”

  Jake swallows nervously. “Art, mostly. I’m an artist.”

  “Was there an argument that night, Jake? Did something happen during dinner? Or maybe after dinner?”

  He shakes his head firmly. “No. There was no argument. We just stayed to talk for a while and then we left. They were fine when we left them, I swear.”

  “Let’s move on,” Reyes says. “What did you do after you and Jenna left the Mertons’ place?”

  “We drove back to her place. I spent the night.”

  “Neither of you went out again?”

  “No.”

  Reyes gives him a long look and says, “Okay. We’ll be in touch.” He sends him off with Barr to be fingerprinted.

  When Barr returns, he says to her, “All three of them have very convenient alibis, don’t you think?” She gives him a cynical nod. “Well I’m not buying it. We need to check them out. See if you can get any video from the Aylesford train station. See if he took a train back to the city that night.” He adds, “And if not, check the morning video too. I want to be sure.” She nods. “In the meantime, I’ll check in with the ME’s office on that second autopsy.”

  He glances at his watch—it’s almost 5:00 p.m.—and makes the short drive there.

  Sandy Fisher, the forensic pathologist, greets him saying, “I was just about to give you a call.”

  She leads him over to Fred Merton’s body, which is lying uncovered on a steel gurney. They look down at him.

  “Fourteen stab wounds, some of which show real ferocity. But it was the slitting of the throat first that killed him. Grabbed from behind, throat slit left to right—the killer is right-handed—then he dropped or was thrown to the floor onto his stomach and stabbed fourteen times in the back, with decreasing depth, probably because the killer was tiring.” She pauses for a moment and adds, “A lot of anger there.”

  “Yes,” Reyes agrees.

  “One more interesting thing,” she says. “Fred Merton had advanced pancreatic cancer. He was dying anyway. He probably only had three or four months.”

  “Would he have known?” Reyes asks, surprised.

  “Oh, I would think so, most definitely.”

  Reyes makes his way back to his car, thoughtful. That certainly might lend weight to Audrey Stancik’s claim that Fred was going to change his will. He wonders who knew that Fred was dying, and what he was planning to do.

  27

  It’s late Wednesday afternoon when Dan drives downtown to the attorney’s office, Lisa silent in the passenger seat beside him. She’d told him that Ted had gone in for questioning right after her, so he knows they’re checking on Catherine’s movements that night too. He thinks about that as he pulls into the parking lot of the building housing his criminal attorney. But Catherine isn’t in a financial mess. And Catherine didn’t have a public falling out with their father.

  They walk through the glass doors of the high-end law firm. It’s not the same firm his father used. And this one has the best criminal defense lawyer Aylesford has to offer. They don’t have to wait. Richard Klein comes out to meet them and takes them directly to his office.

  Dan doesn’t notice much about his surroundings. He focuses on the attorney as if he’s a lifeline. Klein will tell them what to do. He will make it clear to the police that he had nothing to do with this. That’s his job.

  “I’m glad you called me,” the attorney says reassuringly. “You did the right thing.”

  Dan tells the attorney everything—the tense Easter dinner, the discovery of the bodies, what Irena did with the knife, the falling out with his father, the financial mess he’s in, the aggressive way the police questioned him. He doesn’t tell him that he went out for a long drive that night, though—that it was a habit of his—and that Lisa lied to the police for him. The attorney listens intently, asking the occasional question.

  Klein says, “So you were home all night. Your wife confirms that.” Dan and Lisa nod. “Then you don’t have a problem.” He leans forward over his desk, lowering his head. “They’re looking at you—and probably your siblings—because of the money. Naturally. But it doesn’t matter if they think you had motive if they don’t have evidence. We have to see what they come up with.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Dan says.

  “Right. So there won’t be any evidence. You don’t have anything to worry about. Just sit tight. They can’t railroad you if I’m with you.” He adds, “Don’t talk to them again without me there, either of you. If they want to talk to you, call this number”—he slides a card across his desk, after hastily scribbling a number on it in pen—“it’s my cell. Call anytime. Day or night. I’ll come.”

  “Okay,” Dan says, taking the card.

  They sort out the retainer. Dan assures him that it won’t be a problem; his sister Catherine has given him a loan. And when this is all over, he thinks to himself, he’ll pay her back out of his inheritance. Finally Dan rises to leave, Lisa beside him.

  “One more thing,” the attorney says. “Whatever you do, don’t talk to the press. Without evidence, the police can’t do much to you, but the press can still destroy you.”

  * * *


  • • •

  audrey drives directly from the river to Ellen’s place, showing up unannounced. They have that kind of friendship. Both are widows who live alone, so there’s no concern about interrupting anything. They often drop in on each other. Audrey has been holding her emotions forcibly in check all day, but at the sight of Ellen’s kind and familiar face, she promptly bursts into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Ellen asks, alarmed.

  Audrey pours it all out—her visit to Walter that morning, how Fred hadn’t changed his will in her favor after all, her suspicions that one of the kids murdered their parents before Fred could follow through on his intentions.

  Audrey hadn’t told anyone except Ellen about her great expectations. She’s the only one who knows—the only one to whom she bares her soul.

  Ellen is speechless at first, then says, “Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry.”

  When Audrey eventually stops sobbing, she feels drained, completely worn out.

  “You don’t really think one of their own kids did this, do you?” Ellen asks tentatively, as if she can’t stomach the idea. They all know now how the Mertons were killed; it’s all over the news.

  “I’m sure of it. And I’m going to figure out which one,” Audrey vows. She adds, “The police think so too—they’ve had all of them in for questioning today.”

  * * *

  • • •

  as evening falls, Catherine joins Ted in the kitchen for supper. No need to cook—the refrigerator is stuffed with offerings. Ted has put out some of the things that he thinks she will like best; it’s been a long and challenging day. In addition to the stress of the police interviewing everyone, she’s had her hands full dealing with calls from friends of the family. It’s been difficult—accepting their condolences while putting off their prurient curiosity. She’s been holding herself so tightly all day that now her entire body aches. But she’s got the funeral mostly under control—it will be on Saturday, at two in the afternoon. They expect a crowd. Her parents were prominent citizens of Aylesford and the manner of their deaths is going to draw many people who might otherwise have skipped it. After the funeral, there will be a reception at the golf club, with drinks and food—and the expected slideshow of photos running on a loop in the background. And when that’s over, Catherine will collapse. She doesn’t think she will have time to process anything properly until then. She wonders how it will all hit her when she can finally allow it to.