by Shari Lapena
“I wish he was dead,” Fred said one day.
Audrey knew who he was talking about. She felt the same way. Sometimes she’d fantasize about her dad driving drunk and crashing the car, killing himself instantly. In these fantasies, no one else was ever hurt. Maybe there was even insurance money that they didn’t know about. A lot of young Audrey’s daydreams were about coming into a lot of money, since they had so little of it. An unexpected inheritance. A lottery win. Buried treasure.
“If he was dead, we could go back to the city and live with Mom’s sister,” Fred said, as if he’d given it some thought.
Fred liked his aunt Mary, who’d doted on him when he was little, but whom they hadn’t seen in years.
“I thought Mom wasn’t talking to Aunt Mary anymore,” Audrey said.
“You have no clue, do you?” Fred said. “Aunt Mary hates Dad. That’s why she won’t visit.”
“Then why don’t we visit her without him?” Audrey asked.
He gave her a look that told her how dumb she was. “Because we have no money. Dad drinks it all,” he said.
Audrey fell silent. Maybe Aunt Mary was the one sending money. It gave her hope. “Maybe Mom will decide to leave Dad and then we can go live with Aunt Mary.”
He gave her a look of frustration. “She won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s too stupid and too scared.” He sat thinking, silent for a minute. “But I’ve had just about enough of that asshole.”
Things got increasingly tense that summer. Without school, Audrey was at loose ends. Fred “found” an old ten-speed bike and used it to visit his friends, leaving Audrey at home by herself. Her mother had managed to get a part-time job at the grocery store in town. Her father slept all morning, then woke up hungover and nasty. She avoided him as much as she could.
Then one day in August, she was coming back from a walk in the fields in the middle of the afternoon. Fred had gone off on his bike to join his friends at the lake, saying he wouldn’t be back until late. Her mom was working her shift at the grocery store.
As she came past the barn, the door opened and Fred stepped out. He looked flushed and his hair and clothes were rumpled, but he was smiling as if he were pleased with himself. She was surprised to see him there and wondered if there was a girl in the hayloft. She was about to turn away and pretend she hadn’t seen him when he spotted her. He went completely still and stared at her, the smile disappearing.
“What are you doing here?” he said sharply.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
“Have you been watching me?” he asked.
“No. I’ve been out in the fields.”
He seemed to make a decision, then looked back toward the barn door he’d just come out of. “I think our problem is solved,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Audrey asked, not understanding.
He gestured with his head for her to follow him. She walked closer and then stepped into the barn behind him, inhaling the familiar, musty smell of hay. Then her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she screamed.
Her father was hanging from a center beam, a thick rope coiled around his neck. His eyes bulged and his tongue hung out, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. He was grotesque. He hung completely still, clearly dead.
She was still screaming.
“Shut the fuck up,” Fred said, giving her a shake.
She fell silent and looked at her brother. For the first time, he seemed unsure of himself, as if he couldn’t predict what she was going to do. She was only eleven, but she put it together. She looked back at her father and tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. There was an old oil barrel kicked to the side on the earthen floor. It looked like suicide, but she knew better.
“It had to be done,” he said.
She was shocked into silence. She’d never imagined that Fred would do such a thing. She thought he might persuade their mother to leave. She never thought—it had never occurred to her—that he’d do something like this.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ll be back later.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Audrey asked, panicked. She didn’t want to be left alone with a dead body in the barn.
“Go look for him around suppertime. You can find him. And then call the police. They won’t suspect anything. He was a total loser. No one will be surprised that he killed himself.”
“But . . .”
“But what?” he said coldly.
“How . . .” She was going to say how could you do it? but she couldn’t get the words out.
He misunderstood. “I told him I had something I wanted to show him in the barn. Once I got him in here, I came up behind him and choked him unconscious with the rope. Then I strung him up. That was the hard part. He’s heavier than he looks.” He added, “You weren’t supposed to see me here.”
She turned to him. “Would you have told me the truth, if I hadn’t seen you?”
He tilted his head at her. “No. But now that you know, you’re going to keep it to yourself.” He wasn’t asking. He was telling her. “I did it for us.”
40
Ellen drives home in a fog of disbelief. She’d had to pretend it didn’t disturb her as much as it did, what Audrey told her. But it was awful, truly awful. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to look at Audrey the same way ever again. Audrey had gone along with it. She covered up the murder of her father. Ellen reminds herself that Audrey was only eleven years old, a child.
Ellen realizes she’s been sitting in her car in her driveway, staring straight ahead, without moving. She gets out of the car, enters the house, and kicks off her walking shoes. Then she goes into the kitchen and leans against the counter, trying to process what she now knows.
She tries to reconcile what Audrey has told her with the Fred she knew. According to Audrey, Fred was a cold-blooded killer. Why would she lie about it? She has nothing to gain by making the story up. And there had always been a coldness, a selfishness, about Fred. Ellen had thought him a narcissist. She’d never known him to be violent, even when angry, but he was relentless in pursuit of his own interests. And after what Audrey told her—now she knows he was almost certainly a psychopath.
Audrey is convinced this taint of psychopathy, as she calls it, is present in one of Fred’s children. Is it an inheritable trait? She must Google it. Audrey says it is. She said her and Fred’s great-grandfather had been a murderer too.
Ellen remembers clearly the first day she met Fred Merton, because it was the day that changed her life. Fresh out of school, she’d been intimidated by the manner in which he’d conducted her interview. He shot her a few questions, then said he liked the look of her. She hadn’t been sure how to take that—was he being inappropriate? In those days, it was just a passing question, not thought about too deeply. And she needed the job. He offered it to her and she accepted. Over the ten years that she’d worked for him, she’d come to know him well. Fred was all about himself—other people were simply a means to an end. He had great charm, even charisma, but she knew what that charm was—something he used to get what he wanted. So when he tried it on her, she resisted. She resisted him for years. When she finally gave in, it was on her terms, and for her own ends, although she didn’t let him know it. Not then.
But what Audrey told her has unnerved Ellen. Only now does she realize the risk she took. She pours herself a glass of wine, although it’s barely noon.
* * *
• • •
it’s a warm spring day and after her long walk with Ellen, Audrey goes straight to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. She pulls out a plastic jug of premixed iced tea, pours herself a tall glass, and gulps half of it down, still thinking about what she’d revealed to Ellen, after all these years. Ellen had seemed shocked. Well, it was shocking. Ellen has lived a rather sheltered life, compar
ed to Audrey. She tops up her glass and carries it into the living room. She sits down and pulls her laptop off the coffee table onto her lap.
As she scans her email, and then reviews the online news, she begins to feel a bit light-headed. She gets up, goes to the bathroom, and splashes cold water on her face. She returns to her computer, still feeling a bit off. She tries to ignore it, until she starts to feel unwell. She has a headache now and is nauseated. She wonders if she’s caught something. But then she notices that she’s clumsy as she tries to use her mouse, and as she reaches for her glass of iced tea. Something is very wrong. Her vision is blurred. Alarmed, she uses her cell phone to call 911, then vomits all down the side of the sofa.
* * *
• • •
it’s around noon on Sunday when Catherine answers the door and registers the people assembled on her doorstep. Detectives Reyes and Barr are there with a search warrant and an entire team behind them. Ted comes to stand beside her.
She wants to protest but tells herself she has nothing to worry about. She lets them in. What else can she do? There’s nothing for them to find.
As the search proceeds, she and Ted remain in the background. She grows increasingly uncomfortable as they go through her personal things. She blushes as they rummage through her underwear drawer, the dirty laundry hamper. They carefully photograph everything, including the contents of her jewelry box. They take her electronics, even her cell phone.
She’s beginning to understand what Dan must have felt when they searched his place. She’s unnerved and furious, but there’s nothing she can do.
* * *
• • •
ellen puts the wineglass in the sink and leaves the kitchen. The alcohol has steadied her a bit. She’s about to go upstairs to lie down when the doorbell rings. She turns back to answer it.
It’s her daughter, Rose. She looks worse every time she sees her, and Ellen’s anxiety increases at the sight of her. “Rose, honey, come in. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” Rose says, clearly lying. She looks like she hasn’t slept. Or eaten much either lately. Her clothes look big on her.
“You don’t seem fine,” Ellen says, worried. “You look tired. And you’re getting so thin. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong! It’s just work, Mom. It’s stressful, that’s all. I just came over for a visit. I don’t need the third degree.”
Ellen throws up her hands in a peace gesture. “Sorry. Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat? A sandwich?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Rose follows her into the kitchen, where she starts making a couple of tuna sandwiches.
“It’s too bad you missed the funeral yesterday,” her daughter says.
“I’d promised your aunt Barbara that I would visit.”
“I know. But you should have seen it. Dan—it was pretty upsetting, what he said. I felt so bad for Catherine.”
Ellen turns around and looks at her daughter, the awful things Audrey had told her on their walk still clear in her mind. “I read about it in the paper this morning.”
Rose looks troubled and tells her the details the newspaper left out. “I’ve always known from Catherine that things weren’t great in that family, but I didn’t realize they were that bad.”
Ellen shakes her head. “Have you talked to Catherine? You guys are such good friends.”
“I went over to see her,” Rose says. “She’s a mess.” She concentrates on her sandwich.
“You should try to see more of her,” Ellen says. “She’s one of your best friends, and I’m sure she could use your support.”
* * *
• • •
catherine watches as they spray her house with chemicals, focusing on the kitchen and bathroom sinks and the basement laundry room, looking, she assumes, for signs of blood, like they did in Dan’s house. They don’t find any.
They search the grounds outside, front and back, which Catherine finds mortifying. Neighbors are watching from the street and from behind windows. The press is there. She hides inside.
It takes several hours, but at last they’re finished. The detectives and their team have taken away Catherine’s car. She’s furious about that too. At least they still have Ted’s car, but it’s a two-seater, and not the most practical. She asks one of the technicians how long it will be before she gets her car back, but he doesn’t answer her.
When they’re finally gone, she shuts the door firmly after them, feeling like she wants to break something.
“At least that’s over with,” Ted says. He seems relieved. “Now maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
She looks back at him with narrowed eyes. Why is he so relieved? Surely he didn’t expect them to find anything. She forces a tight smile. He can’t be doubting her. Everything’s just getting to her. It’s getting to all of them.
41
The next morning, Monday, Catherine realizes the date. Not that it’s six days since her parents were found murdered. But that it’s April 29. With everything that’s happened, she’s lost track of time. She’s late.
Ted has already left for work, but Catherine has taken more time off. She’s glad he’s not here. She slips into the upstairs bathroom, nervous. The police had been there the day before, and she remembers how they had rifled through all the things in the bathroom cupboard. Now she takes out a pregnancy test. She removes it from its package and prepares to pee on the test strip. She tries not to get her hopes up. She’s only four days late. And all this stress—it could easily throw her off. She’s probably not pregnant at all. But she could really use some good news.
She pees on the strip and waits.
She can hardly bring herself to look. When she does, she bursts into tears.
She’s pregnant. At last.
* * *
• • •
at nine o’clock, Reyes has Jenna back in the interview room. She assures him that she doesn’t need an attorney. Once they’re settled in, the tape running, Reyes says, “Easter Sunday, when you stayed an hour longer than anyone else after dinner, did your father or your mother mention anything about your father planning to change his will to leave half of his estate to his sister?”
She frowns, shakes her head. “No. There’s nothing to that—it’s just what Audrey’s saying. It’s bullshit.”
“Maybe not. Your father had pancreatic cancer. He was dying, putting his affairs in order.”
She seems surprised. “We didn’t know that.”
He looks at her steadily. “Your brother, Dan, said some things at the funeral,” Reyes says.
“Yeah, well, that’s Dan.”
“Did you know about those disposable coveralls in his garage?”
“Yes, we all knew about them, Irena too. We’d all seen him in one of those suits, when he was working on the attic.”
“Did you know he left his garage unlocked?”
“I suppose we all did. He never locked it, for some reason. Just the house.”
“He’s suggesting it was you or your sister who murdered your parents.”
She raises her eyebrows at him. “You’re not taking him seriously, are you? He’s always had a chip on his shoulder. He thinks he got it the worst of all of us, that Catherine and I had it so much better.” She sighs deeply. “We don’t get too upset about it, because he’s right.”
* * *
• • •
audrey wakes in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown, surrounded by machines, and with an IV in her arm. For a moment she can’t make sense of it. What is she doing here? Was she in an accident? And then it comes back to her—the illness, the vomiting—dialing 911 just before collapsing on the floor. Thinking that she might be dying, slipping into unconsciousness. She doesn’t remember anything after that.
But bef
ore that, she’d been drinking iced tea, from her fridge.
She’s absolutely parched, and reaches for the paper cup of water on the table beside her and drinks all of it. She presses the call button and waits for someone to come.
* * *
• • •
catherine merton arrives, with her attorney.
“Good morning,” Reyes says to her politely as the four of them get settled in the interview room. He starts the tape, makes the necessary introductions, and begins.
“Did you know that your father intended to leave half his estate to his sister, Audrey?”
She snorts. “That’s what she says. None of us believe her.”
“This wasn’t discussed at dinner that night?”
“No, of course not. Because she’s making it up. He would never have done that.”
“I’m not so sure,” Reyes says. “He tried to make an appointment, but his lawyer was away. He made an appointment for the following week, but by then he was dead.” She holds his gaze without wavering. “Your father was dying,” he says. He sees a twitch of surprise in her eyes. “Perhaps that’s why he was reorganizing his affairs.”
“I didn’t know,” she says. “What was wrong with him?”
“Advanced pancreatic cancer. He probably had only a few months.” He lets her digest that for a moment. Then he says, “We found something interesting when we were searching your house.”
She focuses her eyes on him, suddenly wary. “What are you talking about?”
“A pair of earrings.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she says sharply. “I have a lot of earrings.”
“But this was a pair of earrings that went missing from your mother’s jewelry box on the night she died.”
“What?” She looks on her guard now.
“A pair of diamond earrings. Square cut and a carat each. Quite valuable.” He opens the folder in front of him and hands her a picture of the earrings. She stares down at the photograph, her face coloring. Reyes says, “This is from an inventory of what was missing from your parents’ home—from the insurers.”