Not a Happy Family

by Shari Lapena

  “Why?”

  Irena sees Catherine hesitate and glance uncertainly at her husband and Jenna. Catherine swallows. “I went over to Mom and Dad’s that night, around eleven thirty. And . . . they were already dead.”

  There is another moment of absolute silence, filled only with the clock ticking.

  “You found them,” Irena finally exclaims, utterly shocked, “and you didn’t say anything? You left it to me to find them?”

  Catherine tries to explain herself. Her voice wavers. “I’m sorry, Irena. I lied about going over there because I didn’t want them to suspect me.”

  “They’re not going to think you did it,” Dan protests. “You’re the favorite. Why would you kill them?”

  Jenna interjects. “Dad said he was going to sell the house that night, remember?”

  Dan turns to face her. “So what? That’s not worth killing them over.” He turns back to Catherine. “They’re never going to suspect you, Catherine.” He pauses. “That’s not like you at all. Why wouldn’t you call 911?”

  Irena has already figured it out, but now she sees the realization dawn on Dan’s face.

  “Oh, I get it,” he says slowly. “You thought I did it.” He looks aghast at his older sister.

  Irena reads the shock on Lisa’s face, the guilty expressions of Catherine, Ted, and Jenna, and understands. Poor Dan, Irena thinks. She briefly closes her eyes and opens them again.

  “I didn’t know what to think,” Catherine says carefully. “So I did nothing. I was in shock. I pretended it wasn’t happening.”

  “Bullshit!” Dan says harshly. “You thought it was me!” He looks wildly around the room. “You all think I did it!”

  No one speaks, and Dan turns on them. “Well, I know I didn’t do it—so maybe it was one of you.”

  Irena remembers how they used to turn on each other as children. Relationships and patterns are established early; they don’t change. Family dynamics play out again and again.

  Dan focuses his attention on his older sister. “Why should we believe you, Catherine?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?” Catherine says.

  “I mean, maybe they weren’t dead when you got there. Maybe you went over there and killed them!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Catherine says dismissively. “You just said I had no reason to kill them.”

  He looks at her coldly. “Maybe I was wrong. We all wanted them dead. There’s all that money. And you wanted the house. Maybe you got tired of waiting for it and thought you could pin it on me—and then there’d be more for you and Jenna.” He sends a vicious glance Jenna’s way. “Is that what happened?”

  Catherine stares back at him, clearly shocked. “That’s absurd, Dan, and you know it.”

  Jenna protests, “If anything, we’re trying to protect you, Dan. Not throw you under the bus.”

  “Protect me?” he cries bitterly. “When have either of you ever protected me? No one ever stepped in.”

  Dan turns now to Irena, his face twisted with emotion. “Except you, Irena. You at least tried to protect me, and I’ll never forget that.” He adds bitterly, “But you shouldn’t have cleaned that knife.”

  Irena looks at them wearily, this fractious brood she raised.

  Catherine says, “We’re not trying to hurt you, Dan. I told the police I talked to Mom and I left.” She adds, “And we’re paying for your defense attorney.”

  Dan turns to Jenna. “What about you?”

  “What?” she says, startled.

  “You have just as much to gain. How do we know you didn’t kill them? We all know you have a violent temper.”

  “Jake was with me all night,” Jenna says coldly.

  “Sure he was,” Dan says sarcastically. “We all know what that’s worth. He could be lying for you.”

  “Well, he’s not.”

  “Great. Then you won’t mind if I ask him.”

  “Don’t be such an asshole.”

  Irena watches, her nerves splintering, as Dan looks from Jenna to Catherine, taking his time, as if thinking about something. Then he says, “It’s just that both of you knew about those disposable suits in my garage. And either one of you could easily have taken one.”

  Into the pregnant silence, the doorbell rings. And everyone in the room turns to look.

  * * *

  • • •

  audrey has deep misgivings regarding what she is about to do. But something had made her point her car in the direction of Catherine’s house. And once she got there and recognized everyone else’s cars, she knew they were all gathered inside. Somehow she made her way up the driveway to the front door and rang the bell. Now she stands there, waiting, her breath coming fast.

  She remembers how much Dan had frightened her earlier that day and thinks: What the hell am I doing? She considers turning on her heel and leaving quickly, but then the door opens, and it’s too late.

  “What do you want?” Catherine says, with a note of hostility.

  “Can I come in?”

  Catherine seems to consider it, then steps back and lets her in. Audrey makes her way into the living room. She meets Dan’s eyes and quickly looks away. The atmosphere is thick with tension. She’s obviously walked into something, a family argument perhaps. She thinks: Someone in this room is the killer. . . . She feels fear stirring the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

  “I won’t stay long,” she says brusquely, to disguise her fear, not even bothering to sit down. “I spoke to Walter yesterday. I’m sure you know by now that your father did not change his will in my favor.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Jenna says with contempt.

  She turns on Jenna, incensed by her dismissive tone. “He didn’t have time, because one of you murdered him before he could do it!” She lifts her eyes to the others, who regard her with clear animosity, and perhaps fear. Audrey continues with barely contained fury. “Did your father tell you he was going to change his will? Or maybe it was your mother, going behind Fred’s back. She knew what your father was going to do, and she didn’t like it. So which one of you did she tell, I wonder?” She looks at each of them in turn and says, with a hint of menace, “I know it was one of you. And I know all your little secrets. Maybe it’s time everyone found out what this family is really like.”

  And then she turns and walks out, both thrilled and frightened at what she’s done.

  33

  Once Audrey has made her exit, Dan leaves his sister’s house, Lisa hurrying to follow. He gets into his wife’s car and slams the door. She climbs in beside him. He backs the car out of the driveway with a squeal and takes off down the street.

  “Slow down,” Lisa cries.

  He eases his foot off the gas, but his hands clench the steering wheel angrily. “They think I did it, Lisa, my own sisters,” he says grimly. He negotiates a corner, going too fast. “And that bitch, Audrey—her and her big mouth.” He thinks of what she knows about him, what she might tell. The expected words of comfort from his wife don’t come. He glances at her. Her face is blank.

  * * *

  • • •

  lisa is reeling with shock. She sits in the passenger seat, one hand against the dashboard, as Dan drives wildly. Dan is speaking to her, but she’s not listening. She’s still trying to come to grips with what just happened. Catherine and Jenna think Dan murdered their parents. That much is clear. The question is, what does she think?

  She has begun to have doubts.

  At first, she didn’t believe Dan had anything to do with it. She knows what clothes he went out in that night. There was no blood on them. So she didn’t mind lying for him to the police.

  And then the detectives found the package of disposable coveralls. She’d stood at the opening to the garage, her mind stuttering. If he’d worn the suit and booties, he wouldn’t have been covered with
blood at all. He could have come home in clean clothes.

  And Catherine—how could she find the bodies and say nothing? It’s disturbing. That’s not like Catherine at all. Surely she wouldn’t do that unless she was trying to protect her brother, give him time to get rid of evidence. That’s the problem—she believes Catherine over her own husband. Her blood runs cold. He was gone a long time that night.

  She believes his sisters want to protect him, even though Dan doesn’t see it that way. If they can live with it, maybe she can too. Dan is about to inherit a fortune. Unless he’s convicted.

  But Catherine and Jenna don’t have to actually live with him.

  And Audrey—why are they all clearly so afraid of her?

  * * *

  • • •

  ted watches Dan and Lisa drive away and closes the door behind them. Slowly, he returns to the living room. Ted sits down heavily beside his wife and leans back against the sofa. He’s exhausted by all of this. He’s grateful that his childhood was relatively simple, as an only child. Catherine’s family is a fucking train wreck.

  Jenna stands up. “I’ll be going, then. Let me know if anything happens.”

  “I’m going too,” Irena says.

  They almost seem to have forgotten about Irena, sitting in her corner, Ted thinks. He wonders if she feels mostly irrelevant to them now.

  Catherine walks them to the door.

  Ted closes his eyes. Soon he hears his wife come back into the living room, feels her sit down on the sofa beside him.

  He’s thinking about what Dan said. He was lashing out—Dan was against the ropes and he knew it. Catherine and Jenna are trying to help him. Ted has decided he’s staying out of it; he’ll let the chips fall where they may.

  But it’s niggling at him, what Dan said. Accusing Catherine, accusing Jenna. Because the truth is, Catherine was there that night. And Ted hasn’t come to terms with the fact that Catherine was able to come home and pretend that everything was fine. He’s not sure how well he really knows her anymore. “Why did he say that, about the disposable suits?” Ted asks, turning his head to look at her.

  “What?”

  “That you knew where they were. How would you know?”

  She shakes her head dismissively. “Jenna and I were over there one day for lunch when he was working on the attic, that’s all. We laughed at how he looked in his hazmat suit. I think you were golfing that day.”

  Ted averts his eyes. “And what was Audrey talking about?”

  Catherine huffs. “Ignore her. She’s just angry that she didn’t get the money. She’s harmless.”

  But Ted can tell she’s worried. And it makes him worry too.

  * * *

  • • •

  jenna drives home, heading north from her sister’s comfortable suburb. She’s soon on the outskirts of town, and then onto the dirt roads of the countryside. As she drives, she thinks about how much she hates her aunt Audrey. Audrey has always seemed to like her least. She’s not sure why. You would think her ranking of favorites would align with her parents’: Catherine first, then Jenna, then Dan. But Audrey seems to have her own preferences, ranking Jenna in last place. It’s not like Jenna’s ever done anything to her.

  It’s clear that Audrey is threatening them all. She would never have dared to do that when their father was alive. But she’s obviously feeling vindictive and reckless. She thinks she’s been robbed of a fortune, and that it’s their fault.

  Audrey is privy to the family secrets, most of them anyway. She knows things about them, things that might prejudice the police, and the public, against them. Audrey knows, for instance, about Jenna’s early violent streak.

  When Jenna was six years old, furious at Dan for teasing her, she’d pushed him right off the top of the slide in their backyard. He’d fallen backward with a scream and landed hard on the ground. It could have been much worse—he’d only broken his arm, not his neck. Catherine had seen it happen and gone crying to their parents.

  “What kind of child pushes another one off the top of the slide?” Audrey gasped, horrified, making more of it than she should have. Unfortunately, she happened to be there that day. Then she’d stayed behind with their father while their mother took Dan to the hospital to have his arm put in a cast. Jenna sat under the kitchen table playing with her Barbies and listened to Audrey and her father talk about her. “You’d better keep that temper in check, young lady,” Audrey had said as she left. Jenna has disliked her ever since.

  Following that, she’d given Catherine a concussion, and Audrey knew about that, too, because their father told his sister everything about the kids, the worse the better. Jenna had picked up a plastic bat and struck Catherine, who had fallen and banged her head on the pavement, when they were having an argument. Catherine had been rushed to the hospital. Their parents told people that Catherine had fallen while playing.

  Jenna had been properly punished for that one.

  * * *

  • • •

  at home that night, Audrey watches the eleven o’clock news in her pajamas, sipping a chamomile tea. There’s nothing new about the Merton case. She sits in bed, seething at the television set, thinking unhappily about her lost inheritance, which she had so hoped to be able to enjoy. She’d imagined a house of her own in Brecken Hill, fine clothes, and trips to Europe and the Bahamas. There’s brief footage of them searching Dan’s house earlier that day, but she has no idea if they found anything incriminating. They’re not saying. She remembers how frightened she was when Dan came toward her car window, the rage in his fist as it hit her car.

  Now that she’s had time to think about it, she can hardly believe she crashed the family gathering at Catherine’s afterward. Where had she found the courage?

  She decides to pay a visit to the detectives in the morning.

  34

  It’s Friday morning, and Reyes and Barr are reviewing the case. The crime scene has yielded disappointingly little in the way of evidence or clues. They have found no physical evidence left behind by the killer. Reyes is beginning to believe they are dealing with someone rather clever, someone able to plan a double murder and perhaps get away with it. But not if he has anything to do with it.

  They know there was possibly another vehicle in the vicinity that night—the one the neighbor, Mrs. Sachs, claims to have seen. A pickup truck that could not have been mistaken for Catherine’s, Dan’s, or Jenna’s cars. Or Irena’s either. Whoever was driving it may have seen something. It’s possible the person in that truck may have killed the Mertons. But his instincts tell him otherwise. Unless one—or more—of the Merton offspring hired someone to kill the parents—possibly the person in the truck. But their police bulletins, the description to the media, the inquiries at shops that do that kind of custom paintwork—nothing has come of any of it.

  The sergeant from the front desk knocks lightly on Reyes’s open door. “Sir,” she says.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “There’s someone here to see you about the Merton case. Audrey Stancik?”

  Reyes glances at Barr. “Fred Merton’s sister.” They haven’t had her in to talk to yet, but she’s on their list. He rises from his desk. “Let’s see why she’s here.”

  They walk into the waiting area, and Reyes sees a plump woman with shoulder-length blond hair rise from one of the chairs. She’s well groomed, wearing bright coral lipstick and dressed in a beige pantsuit, a brightly printed blouse, and sensible heels. He estimates that she’s probably around sixty years of age. Fred, he remembers, was sixty-two.

  They get Audrey settled in an interview room. Barr offers her coffee, which she gladly accepts. “Milk and two sugars,” she says.

  “What brings you here?” Reyes asks at last.

  “I know you’ve interviewed everyone in the family,” she says, her eyes shrewd, “except me.” She takes a sip of her co
ffee and puts it back down.

  Reyes wonders if she’s merely a busybody who feels left out, but what she says next makes his ears prick up.

  “I know a lot about that family,” she says. “And unlike the others, I’m willing to tell you about it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  jenna takes the train into New York City on Friday morning and meets Jake for coffee at a place they both like, the Rocket Fuel café. It’s a place where artists like to hang out—it’s cheap and grungy, with scarred tables and mismatched chairs, and the coffee is strong. She gets there first, watching for him out the window, waiting for him to come through the door. She hasn’t known him that long. She doesn’t know him that well. She hopes she hasn’t made a mistake.

  She sees him enter the café, long and lean, and remembers how attracted she is to him. She’d almost forgotten about that. She smiles as he saunters over to her. She stands up and gives him a long kiss, sparking looks from the other patrons.

  “Hey,” Jake says, his voice low and sexy. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” she says, and realizes that it’s true. She loves the smell of paint and turpentine coming off him, mixing with the smell of sweat.

  Once he gets his coffee, they sit huddled close together at her small table. “It’s so good to see you,” he says, stroking her hair. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”

  She nods. “I think so. But Jake—” She looks deep into his eyes and lowers her voice. “Catherine and I, we think maybe Dan did it.” He looks back at her gravely. She realizes that he’s not that surprised. It hits her then that everyone is going to see Dan as the obvious suspect.

  She leans in closer, whispering. “The police obviously think he did it. He told them he was in that night, all night, and Lisa backed him up, but the cops have witnesses—he went out in his car, and he was gone for hours.” She adds, “He’s got an attorney now.”