Not a Happy Family

by Shari Lapena

  And there it is. She knows. He’s asking for more than he needs. He’s asking for what he wants. And his wants are going to get bigger and bigger.

  “I don’t have money like that lying around,” she says.

  “I know. But you can get it now, right?”

  She notices the now. “I suppose I can try to ask Walter for an advance,” she admits.

  He nods. “Great. I have to get going—I want to get some more work done. Stay as long as you like.”

  He approaches her and gives her a long, intimate kiss. She pretends she’s enjoying it as much as she usually does. But when he leaves, she stares at the closed door after him for a long time.

  51

  As Reyes and Barr approach Ellen Cutter’s modest but well-kept bungalow, Reyes muses about what kind of woman she is. She’s certainly able to keep a secret.

  The door is opened by a woman in her early sixties. They produce their badges and introduce themselves. “May we come in?” Reyes asks.

  She lets them in and they all sit down in the living room.

  “We’re investigating the murders of Fred and Sheila Merton,” Reyes says. “We understand that your daughter, Rose, is the biological child of Fred Merton.”

  “Yes, she is,” she answers a trifle sharply.

  “We’re not here to dispute that,” Reyes says. “She shares equally in Fred Merton’s will with his other children.”

  “Yes. It was quite a shock to learn that,” she says. “I just found out yesterday. Rose told me.”

  “You had no idea that your daughter was a beneficiary?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Where were you on the night of April twenty-first, Easter Sunday?”

  She seems taken aback. “What? Why?” He simply waits. “I was at home. My sister came, and my daughter, for Easter dinner. Rose left, but my sister stayed over and went home in the morning. She lives in Albany. Why are you asking me this?” He looks at her steadily. She gives a short laugh, uncertain. “You’re wondering if I killed them? That’s ridiculous.” She looks nervously now from Reyes to Barr, as if unsure of her footing.

  Reyes explains. “Fred Merton had decided to change his will, cutting his children out of half of his considerable fortune.”

  “How would I know that?” Ellen says.

  “Because your friend Audrey Stancik told you.”

  He notices her surprise, watches as she loses some of her assurance. “Maybe she did, I don’t remember,” she says, trying to be offhand about it. “But I had no idea Rose was in the will at all. I had nothing to do with this.”

  He lets a silence fall, waiting to see if she’ll fill it. She does. “My sister stayed over that night, as I said. She didn’t go home until the next morning. You can ask her.”

  “What about Rose? When did she leave?”

  “About eight o’clock.” She reads their faces and says, “Rose didn’t even know Fred was her father till after he was already dead.” Reyes says nothing. “My daughter has nothing to do with this,” Ellen says dismissively. “Maybe you should look at the other children, the ones who knew they were going to inherit.”

  Reyes isn’t going to tell her that her daughter is about to be arrested for fraud. He’ll leave that to Rose. But he can’t resist saying, as they leave, “Maybe you don’t know your daughter as well as you think you do.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ellen watches the detectives as they leave. Audrey’s behind this, she thinks, she must be. Audrey must have told them she’d told Ellen about the expected change to the will. And now Audrey’s turned on her—pointed the police at her and Rose, because she’s angry about Rose’s inheritance. That’s just crazy. Audrey is one of her oldest friends. She thinks bitterly, you really can’t trust anyone, can you?

  She tries to call Rose, but there’s no answer.

  * * *

  • • •

  walter temple looks up from his desk and watches Janet Shewcuk scurry down the hall past his office with her head down. He stares after her, and it strikes him suddenly that she’s been avoiding him these last few days. The feeling of uneasiness that’s been tapping him on his shoulder lately now circles around and stares him in the face. He’s felt concerned ever since he met Rose Cutter. He turns to his computer and looks up where Rose Cutter went to law school, and when. He does the same for Janet Shewcuk, his junior associate.

  Then he sits back anxiously in his big leather chair, dreading what he must do. He closes his eyes for a long moment and asks himself if he can just do nothing. Then he opens his eyes, pulls out the card from the top drawer of his desk, and calls Detective Reyes.

  * * *

  • • •

  the receptionist at Temple Black directs Reyes and Barr to Walter’s office as soon as they arrive. Walter looks as if he has something heavy weighing on his mind, Reyes thinks.

  “What is it?” Reyes asks, as he and Barr seat themselves across from the attorney.

  Walter sighs wearily and says, “Two or three months ago, I asked my junior associate, Janet Shewcuk, to do a wills review for Fred and Sheila Merton. It was coming up to five years since they’d looked at their wills and we usually do a review around that time.”

  “Go on,” Reyes says.

  “Yesterday, Rose Cutter was here to talk about the will. And something didn’t seem right.”

  “Like what?”

  Walter shakes his head. “I don’t know. Something was off. I just didn’t believe her—that she didn’t know about any of this.” He bites his lip pensively. “It’s been bothering me ever since. Then I did some digging and discovered that Janet and Rose had gone to the same law school at the same time.”

  “And you thought they might know each other,” Reyes says, “and that she might have told Rose what was in the will?”

  Walter nods miserably. “I thought maybe it would be better if you asked her.”

  Reyes says, his pulse quickening, “Let’s talk to her.”

  “I’ll get her for you,” Walter says and leaves his desk.

  A couple of minutes later he returns to his office with a young woman in a gray suit, her blond hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. He pulls out a chair for her as she sits down nervously, then he introduces the detectives. When Janet Shewcuk realizes they’re detectives, she is clearly frightened. When Reyes tells her they’re investigating the Merton homicides, she begins to tremble.

  Reyes says, “We understand you’re familiar with the Merton wills.” The young attorney flushes a guilty red. He waits.

  “I reviewed them,” she admits, going redder still.

  “You don’t happen to know Rose Cutter, do you?” Reyes asks.

  She swallows, her eyes blink rapidly. “We went to law school together.”

  “I see,” Reyes says. The woman attorney glances furtively at her boss and looks like she’s about to cry. “And you told her that she was a beneficiary under Fred Merton’s will.”

  Then she does begin to cry, messily. Walter hands her a tissue from a box on his desk. They wait it out. At last she manages to say, “I know it was a breach of confidentiality. I should never have said anything.” Her face is a portrait in misery. “But Rose is a lawyer too—she wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t think it would hurt anyone.” She looks at them, distraught. “How was I to know that they would be murdered ?”

  “And when did you tell Rose about this potential windfall?” Reyes asks.

  “It was maybe two months ago? It was such a surprise when I saw her name right there in the will. I didn’t tell her when I first found out. I didn’t mean to tell her at all. But we were out one night and I had a bit too much wine.”

  Reyes steals a look at Walter and his face is like thunder. Reyes asks, “After the murders, did Rose ask you not to admit you’d told her?”

/>   “No. She didn’t have to,” Janet answers miserably. “We both knew if it got out it would ruin my career.” She looks up at them and says, “Surely you don’t think she did it?”

  52

  Rose is standing outside her mom’s front door. Her mother has been calling her, but Rose hasn’t answered. She really doesn’t want to talk to her, but she knows she must. She rings the bell.

  Her mother opens the door, visibly upset. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “I know, I was tied up,” Rose lies.

  “The police were here,” her mother tells her.

  “What?”

  “About Fred and Sheila’s murders.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Rose asks, thrown off balance, following her into the living room, where she sees her mother has a glass of wine poured. As her mother explains, Rose feels her anxiety escalate.

  “Just because I knew that Fred was going to change his will, giving half to Audrey, they had the gall to suggest I did it—to protect your interest. I didn’t even know you were in the will! They asked me if I had an alibi.”

  “They can’t be serious,” Rose protests as she sits down beside her.

  “Fortunately, Barbara was here all night.” Her mother turns to her and says, “They were asking about you too. But I told them you didn’t even know Fred was your father till after he was dead. You didn’t know about the will either.”

  Rose remembers with a sickening feeling how the detectives questioned her about the murder. “I went home to bed after Easter dinner with you,” Rose says. “I don’t have an alibi.” She feels light-headed.

  Her mother tries to reassure her. “Well, I wouldn’t worry. There’s no way they can suspect you. You didn’t know anything.” Her mother asks, “Have you spoken to Catherine yet?”

  But Rose isn’t listening. Her insides are clenched in a knot.

  “Rose?” her mother says sharply.

  She looks up at her mother and says, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  back at the police station, Reyes and Barr are approached by an officer who has something to show them. He seems excited. He and Barr follow the officer to a computer monitor and they all look at the screen.

  “I’ll be damned,” Reyes says. He claps the officer on the back. “Good work.”

  * * *

  • • •

  once her daughter has left, Ellen paces the living room, horrified about Rose and the terrible thing she’s done. When Rose told her about the mess she’d gotten herself into with Dan’s money, she simply couldn’t believe it. She’d been struck dumb, literally unable to speak for a long moment.

  Ellen hadn’t been as supportive as she might have been. But—how could Rose be so selfish? So reckless? So stupid? It was completely unlike her. This wasn’t the Rose she knew. She finally understood why her daughter had been so stressed, why she had lost weight. She’s so angry at her. And she told her how disappointed she was.

  Ellen has always taken a great deal of pride in Rose, in being her mother. But people are going to find out about this. Rose will probably go to jail—not for too long—but the thought of visiting her daughter in jail makes Ellen feel utterly humiliated. Everyone will know what she did. She won’t be able to practice law anymore, after she worked so hard. And Ellen will forever be ashamed of her. She won’t be able to say that her daughter is an attorney. Her daughter is a criminal, and she won’t be able to say anything at all.

  Now, as Ellen cries, tears running down her face, a small part of her wishes she hadn’t been so harsh with Rose, wishes that she’d hugged her daughter before she left, the way she always does. But she hadn’t. This is going to be hard to forgive. She needs time.

  She continues to pace, with a detour into the kitchen to refill her wineglass. At least Rose will get her inheritance. She’ll be able to start over, once she gets out of jail. They will probably have to move away—how could either of them hold their heads up after this? It would have been so lovely if Rose hadn’t broken the law, and she inherited all that money. She could have had everything she wanted. Ellen could have been so proud of her.

  She knows, too, now, that they have already questioned Rose about the murders—Rose admitted it. She is going to be charged with fraud. But those detectives can’t seriously think Rose had anything to do with the murders; it won’t matter that she doesn’t have an alibi. Rose didn’t know she was in the will.

  She never thought Rose could be remotely capable of stealing someone else’s money. She remembers that awful detective’s last words to her: Maybe you don’t know your daughter as well as you think you do.

  Ellen can’t stop thinking about what she read online about psychopathy, and how it can run in families. She thinks about the Mertons. Her Rose is now part of that family. What if one of them is the murderer? She knows Audrey has always thought so.

  Audrey may never speak to her again, and this pains her. She had hoped their long friendship could weather the revelation of Rose’s parentage.

  Then it crosses her mind that if one of the other Merton children is convicted of the murders, they will forfeit their share, and there will be more for Rose.

  * * *

  • • •

  it was inevitable, Rose thinks, sitting once again in the hard chair in the same interview room, her attorney beside her, concerned. As evening approaches, the two detectives question her aggressively. She’d hoped Janet wouldn’t say anything, that no one would find the connection. But here she is, and the detectives have already spoken to Janet.

  “You knew you were in the will, Janet Shewcuk told you,” Reyes repeats. “You lied to us.”

  “Yes, I knew,” Rose admits finally, exhausted. “But I didn’t kill them.”

  “You don’t have an alibi,” Reyes points out. “You needed money to pay Dan back so that you wouldn’t go to jail for fraud. Is that what you were thinking? That if Fred and Sheila were dead, and everybody got their inheritance, you could pay him back, and no one would be the wiser? Or, more likely, if the money didn’t come through from the estate in time, and they found out what you’d done with Dan’s money, they would just keep it quiet and let you pay him back and forgive you, because you’re family?”

  “I didn’t kill them,” Rose repeats stubbornly. But fear has crept down her throat and settled in her gut.

  53

  That evening, Catherine carefully sets the scene. Despite everything that’s going on, she wants the moment she and Ted have waited for to be perfect. She’s bought flowers for the table. She’s ordered a gourmet meal from their favorite French restaurant, which she’s keeping warm in the oven.

  When Ted arrives home from work, she takes his jacket and tells him she has a surprise for him. He turns and looks at her and she smiles. “It’s not a bad surprise,” she says.

  “Oh, good. Because we’ve had a lot of those, lately,” Ted says.

  “Put all that out of your mind,” she tells him. “Come with me.”

  He follows her into the dining room, where she has set a lovely table. “Smell that?” she asks. “I’ve ordered in, from Scaramouche.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Ted asks.

  “I’ll tell you, but first, sit down.”

  She brings the food to the table, and they sit across from one another. She lights the candles.

  She’s put a bottle of red wine on the table, which he automatically opens. He reaches over to pour for her but she places her fingers across the top of her wineglass and smiles at him. He glances up at her in surprise.

  “None for me,” she says. He doesn’t seem to get it. She tells him, “It’s not good for the baby.”

  “You’re pregnant?” He gets up and comes around to her side of the table. She stands and he embraces her. She can�
��t see his face.

  It is, she thinks, a perfect moment.

  * * *

  • • •

  later that evening, Ted slips out of the house. He tells Catherine he’s going to pick up a few things. She seems happy, chattering on about how she’ll have to switch from wine to tonic and lime—without the gin—so no one will suspect she’s pregnant. At least for a while. Until they’re past the three-month point. He urges her to relax, have a bath and pamper herself while he’s out. He tells her how happy he is about the baby and that he’ll be home soon to take care of her. Then he leaves the house, closing the door behind him.

  He wants a child, of course he does. He’s just not sure he wants one with her. He imagines the two of them, with a baby, living in the murder house, and has to suppress a shudder.

  He drives to the arranged meeting place. He’s going to see his sister-in-law, Lisa. He has a terrible need to confide in someone, and there’s no one else he can talk to about this. He hopes he’s not making a mistake in trusting Lisa. But if he doesn’t do something, he’s going to explode. He and Catherine have been worrying out loud that Dan may be a murderer and agreeing that they must do what they can to protect him.

  But maybe Dan isn’t the murderer.

  After the detectives visited him at his office yesterday, Ted told Catherine what they’d said. How stupid she’d been for not telling him what the earrings looked like. She’d gone very still and said, Shit. She described them then, but the truth is, he can’t remember her ever wearing them. On the other hand, he never notices her jewelry.

  He has no idea what Catherine is really thinking. Does she know he suspects her? And now this—she’s pregnant. He could do without this good news.