by Shari Lapena
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t like it.”
“Of course I don’t like it!” His voice is rising. “I already told you that I thought an apology was a bad idea! And the lawyer agreed with me.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I did it before we saw the lawyer.” She’s beginning to cry. “I thought it wouldn’t do any harm, and I thought some sort of apology should be made. There was nothing in the letter that would lead back to Raleigh.”
He looks at her in cold fury. “I don’t like that you went behind my back.”
“I know,” she says, almost as coldly. “And I’m sorry, but why should you get to make all the decisions? I don’t like it when you tell me what I can and cannot do.” She feels furious with him suddenly. Why should he get to decide everything? Even though, this time, he was absolutely right. She’s still smarting because he overruled her the night before on the question of having Raleigh see a therapist. She takes a deep breath and exhales. “I made a mistake. You were right. I shouldn’t have done it. I feel awful about going behind your back. And I felt terrible about not telling you. We’ve never kept secrets from each other before. We’ve always been honest with each other.”
He turns away from her. “Let’s just hope this doesn’t jump up and bite us in the ass,” he says. “How could you do this without talking to me? That’s not like you.”
Because you gave me no choice, Olivia wants to say, but she remains silent. A moment passes, but the tension between them doesn’t dissipate.
“So why are you telling me this now?” Paul asks testily, turning back to her again.
“Because . . . there may be a problem.”
“What problem?” His voice is tense.
Olivia steels herself to tell him the next bit. “A woman came here today. Her name is Carmine something. She lives next door to Zoe, from book club.” Olivia pauses, but then forces herself to go on. “Raleigh broke into her house. She’s been going around the neighborhood, telling people about the break-in, and showing them the letter.”
“You didn’t tell her the truth, did you?” Paul glowers at her.
“No, of course not!”
“Well, that’s something,” Paul snorts.
“But she may have guessed.”
“How?”
“You know what I’m like!” Olivia exclaims. “I can’t hide anything! I got really nervous. She asked me if I was okay. She could tell I was upset. Then she started asking if I had teenagers in the house. I’m worried that she may have figured it out.”
There’s a long, pained silence. Olivia can’t even look at her husband. She stares miserably at the floor instead.
“Jesus,” Paul mutters. “I can’t believe this.” After a moment, he asks, “What was she like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is she the type to pursue this and press charges? Is she likely to come after him?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, why was she going around knocking on doors in the first place?” Olivia hears a sound and looks up; Paul looks up, too. She sees Raleigh standing in the living room doorway, looking tense.
“Figured what out?” Raleigh asks. “What’s going on?”
He looks anxiously at both of them. She glances at Paul. They have to tell him.
Raleigh asks, “Why are you crying, Mom? What’s happened?”
Olivia looks at her husband, gauging the situation; he’s already angry at her. They have no choice. She turns back to Raleigh. She hates the thought of Raleigh hearing about the letters, that he might be found out. He’ll blame her. He won’t take responsibility for his part in it, he’ll just blame her for the letters. She pulls herself together. This is what happens when you interfere, she thinks bleakly.
Raleigh slouches into an armchair, facing them on the sofa, his expression alarmed. “Am I going to be arrested?”
“No,” Olivia says.
“We hope not,” Paul clarifies, and Olivia sees the quick flash of fear in Raleigh’s eyes.
“I didn’t take anything,” Raleigh says quickly. “I’m never going to do it again. I swear.”
“That’s what we hoped,” Paul says. “But your mother here, against my express wishes, slipped apology letters through the mail slots of the houses you broke into.”
Raleigh turns to her in disbelief and obvious fear. “Why would you do that? The lawyer said—”
“I know what the lawyer said,” Olivia breaks in. “I did it before we saw the lawyer. I thought someone should apologize to these people and let them know that their computers had been hacked. I still think it was the morally right thing to do.” Her voice has become defensive. “And the letters were anonymous—there was nothing in them that could lead to you, Raleigh.”
“Except that one of the people whose house you broke into came knocking on our front door today,” Paul says. “And your mother got nervous and may have made the woman suspicious.”
Raleigh looks like he’s about to be sick.
“So it’s not necessarily over yet,” Paul says.
Olivia forces herself to say it. “The other house that Raleigh broke into was the Pierces’.”
Paul looks back and forth between the two of them, his face showing disbelief. “And you’re just telling me this now?”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” Olivia says lamely.
“You didn’t think—Jesus Christ! The police have been all over that house!”
“I know,” Olivia says.
“I don’t suppose you wore gloves, Raleigh?” Paul says, turning to his son.
Raleigh shakes his head, looking frightened, and says, “I’m not a criminal.”
“Oh, Christ,” Paul says.
“The police don’t have Raleigh’s prints on file,” Olivia says, her voice tense. “They can’t connect Raleigh to the break-ins.” Surely they can’t prove anything against Raleigh?
“What if this woman goes to the police and accuses him?” Paul asks. “What if they take his prints? They’ll know he was in both of those damn houses!”
Olivia sends a desperate, pleading look for forgiveness at her son, but he turns and flees upstairs, before he bursts into tears again.
* * *
—
Raleigh returns to his bedroom and slams the door behind him. He throws himself down on his bed and puts his headphones on and turns his music up loud. He wants to blot the scene downstairs from his mind, but he can’t. He keeps thinking about it. How could his mother have been so stupid? He’d wanted to yell at her, but he didn’t dare. And his dad—his dad is still furious at him, he can tell. And now his dad is furious at his mom, too.
Raleigh’s angry at everyone, but he knows deep down that it’s mostly his own fault.
He lies on his bed, heart pounding, wondering if he’s going to be arrested. He will have to see that horrible lawyer again. He feels bad at how much money this might cost his parents. He will make it up to them. He’ll be a better son. He’ll start doing chores, work harder in school.
Raleigh is sick with fear. Every time someone knocks at the door, he’s going to think it’s the police, coming for him.
* * *
—
Becky rattles around in her empty house, which is far too big for just one person. It’s Wednesday night. Her husband has been away on business all week, on the West Coast, although they have been in touch by phone. He’ll be home tomorrow evening. She’s proud of her husband, Larry, and grateful that he’s been successful—she doesn’t need to work—but sometimes it’s lonely. With the long hours and travel, he missed so much of the kids growing up. She didn’t really mind it when the kids were here, but since the twins went off to college, she’s missed him. Working from home wasn’t her first choice; she’d rather be out of the house. But she wanted to g
et back into bookkeeping, and the only work she could find was freelance. Now she’s made such a mess of things that she wonders if she should just find a full-time job at a shop somewhere. Something that will get her out of the house. She needs to keep herself busy. Because she’d been thinking far too much about Robert Pierce, alone next door, and what they were like together.
She thinks uneasily about him now. He did suspect his wife was having an affair. It makes her uncomfortable, what he said to her, telling her what to do. He’s lying, and he wants her to lie, too. He’s clearly afraid of the police. She can understand that. He doesn’t want her telling the detectives that he knew his wife was cheating. Well, she won’t tell them. He doesn’t have to worry about her.
Now she remembers something else—a night in the summer. It was before Becky slept with Robert the first time, but she was already hopelessly attracted to him, devoting far too much of her time to thinking about him.
Becky didn’t mean to spy on them. But it was a hot night, and she had the upstairs windows open and she heard music coming from their backyard. Some slow jazz piece filtering across the sweet summer air, something romantic. She looked out a window, taking care not to be seen. Robert and Amanda were on the back lawn, wrapped in each other’s arms. She felt an immediate stab of jealousy. Oh, to be young and in love again—dancing in the moonlight! Becky couldn’t see their faces, but after watching them for a minute, she realized something was wrong. Something about the way they were holding each other. Amanda wasn’t relaxing into her husband; she seemed to be moving stiffly as they danced, as if she were unwilling, almost as if she were being forced.
After a moment, Becky saw Amanda’s shoulders convulsing. She was sobbing, her face buried in her husband’s chest.
Now Becky wonders again about what she saw. She’d romanticized Robert, she knows that. What had been going on that night in the dark?
Robert couldn’t have killed Amanda, Becky tells herself again, staring into the dark. Surely she would know if someone she’d had sex with was a killer? Surely she would be able to tell?
SIXTEEN
Carmine is lingering on her front walk on Thursday morning when she sees Zoe come out of the house and head for her car.
“Hey, Zoe!” she calls, and makes her way over to her next-door neighbor’s driveway.
“Hi, Carmine,” Zoe calls. “How are you?”
“Good.” She reaches the driveway. “Have you heard anything more about that woman who was killed?”
Zoe shakes her head. “It’s too awful. To have somebody murdered who lived so close.” Her expression is solemn. She adds, “I’m sure the police will find out who did it.” She pauses with her hand on the door of the car. “Any luck finding out who broke into your house?”
“I think so,” Carmine says. “Do you know the Sharpes? On Sparrow? They have a teenage boy, right?”
“Yes, Raleigh.” Zoe frowns and narrows her eyes, catching her meaning. “You can’t think it’s him.”
“Why not?”
“Well, why would you? He’s Olivia and Paul’s boy. He would never do something like that. I know Olivia. She’s in my book club.”
Carmine remains quiet, watching Zoe.
“Why do you think it’s him?” Zoe asks finally.
“I went by there yesterday afternoon,” Carmine says. “The way she reacted, I’d swear she knew exactly what I was talking about. She looked very nervous, and guilty. I’d bet a hundred dollars she wrote that letter.”
Zoe bristles. “I don’t think so.” She pauses. “We were talking about it at book club, and I didn’t notice anything.”
“Maybe you could talk to her?” Carmine suggests.
“What do you mean?”
“Find out if it was her son, and if she wrote the letter?” Carmine says.
“I’m not going to ask her that!”
“Okay,” Carmine says, turning away.
“Wait!” Zoe calls. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” Carmine says and heads back inside.
* * *
—
Webb and Moen stand on Becky Harris’s front step and ring the bell. They both feel that she is still holding something back, that she knows more than she’s telling.
Her car is sitting in the driveway. The day is overcast and threatens rain. Webb rings the bell again, flashing an impatient look at Moen.
Finally the door opens. Becky looks like she hasn’t slept much. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail as if she didn’t want to bother with it. She’s wearing yoga pants and a shapeless sweater.
“What do you want?” she asks.
“May we come in?” Webb asks politely.
“What for?”
“We have a few more questions.”
She sighs and opens the door reluctantly.
Webb wonders about her change of mood. The day before she had been weepy and terrified of exposure, but today she seems resigned. She’s had a long, probably sleepless night to think about it. Perhaps she’s realizing that it’s inevitable that her indiscretions will come out. She leads them into the living room. She doesn’t ask them to sit down or offer them anything; it’s clear she doesn’t want them here. He can’t blame her. She’s been sleeping with her neighbor, now the chief suspect in a murder investigation.
The two detectives sit down on the sofa; Becky finally slumps down in an armchair angled across from them.
“We appreciate that this isn’t easy for you,” Webb begins. Becky watches him uneasily, her eyes darting to Moen as if for support, and then back to him. “But we think there’s more that you can tell us.”
“I told you everything already,” Becky says. “I don’t know anything about Amanda’s murder.” She shifts restlessly in her chair. “I told you I don’t think he did it. Someone else must have done it.”
“It’s just that we feel you’re keeping something from us, Becky,” Webb says. “There’s something you’re not telling us.” She looks back at him with a stony, almost angry expression, but her hands are fidgeting in her lap. He notes that the skin around the cuticles is picked raw.
“I spoke to him yesterday afternoon, over the fence,” she says finally. He waits patiently. She looks down at her lap. “He was outside, in the backyard. I saw him, and opened the back door. He called me over.”
She seems to think for a moment, as if deciding what to say. Webb already doesn’t trust the truth to come out of Becky’s mouth, but some edited version of it.
“He asked me if I thought he’d killed Amanda. I told him of course not. He told me he didn’t kill her, and I said I believed him. I told him that you knew about us. That I was worried about my fingerprints in his bedroom, and that my husband would find out—that it might ruin my marriage, destroy my family.” Her eyes are starting to fill up. She puts her hands up to her face, covers her mouth. Webb finds himself staring at her ragged cuticles.
“Did he say anything else?” he prods, when she hasn’t spoken for a while.
She shakes her head. “Not that I remember.” She sniffles and then looks up at them. “My husband’s coming home tonight. This is all going to come out, isn’t it?”
Webb says, “The truth has a way of coming out.”
She looks at him bitterly. “Then if it does, I hope all of it does. I hope you find the real killer and leave Robert alone. Because I don’t think he did it.” She pauses as if she’s gathering herself. Something in her face has changed, as if she has come to some kind of decision. “There’s something else I have to tell you.”
Webb leans forward, elbows on knees, and looks at her intently. “What’s that?”
“I know Amanda was seeing someone else.”
“How do you know that?” Webb asks, feeling a prickle of excitement.
“I saw them together, and I knew. I didn’t want to t
ell you, because I know him, and I know he couldn’t have killed Amanda either. I knew you’d just go after him like you’ve gone after Robert, when she was probably murdered by some nutcase somewhere, not killed by her husband, or the man she was seeing, who may have been unfaithful, but wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Becky, who did you see Amanda with?”
She sighs heavily, regretfully. “It was Paul Sharpe. His wife, Olivia, is a friend of mine. They live down the street,” she says miserably, “at Number Eighteen.”
“Tell us what you saw, Becky,” Detective Webb urges.
* * *
—
Becky is sick at what she’s about to do, but feels she has no choice. Like the detective says, the truth will come out eventually. She’s telling the truth now, no more, no less. “I saw Paul and Amanda together one night, a short time before Amanda disappeared. It was raining, and they were sitting in Amanda’s car. It was about nine o’clock at night, and I was leaving the movie theater downtown. They were in a parking lot. There’s a bar across from the parking lot. I wondered if they’d been in the bar together.”
“And . . .”
She thinks back, trying to remember every detail. “They were in the front seat—she was in the driver’s seat. There was a light in the parking lot shining on them so I could see them quite clearly. I was so shocked at seeing them together, I stopped in my tracks and stared for a minute, but they were so intent on one another that they didn’t notice me.”
“You’re absolutely sure it was them?”
“I’m certain. Their faces were close together at first. I thought they might kiss. But then, after a minute, they seemed to be arguing.”
“Go on.”
“He was saying something to her, as if he were angry, and she laughed at him and pulled away and he grabbed her arm.”
“So you think they were seeing each other?” Webb asks.
She nods. “That’s what it looked like. They seemed . . . intimate. Why else would they be there together?” She looks down at her lap. “I felt awful for Olivia. She’s a good friend of mine. Amanda always struck me as a flirt, but I never would have guessed that Paul would cheat on Olivia.”