Fatal Option

by Chris Beakey

  Stephen stared down at the floor as he remembered the conversation with Kenneth about being beaten up by Marco Niles, and the deaths on the mountain.

  “Niles shot his own son too,” he said.

  “Yes, right before you got there,” Caruso said. “They had been at each other’s throats ever since the death of Niles’ wife. Niles hated Marco. And I think he lived in a constant state of threat, knowing April could expose his past at any time. I don’t believe Niles knew his son murdered Danica Morris at the time it happened, but I know for a fact that he was worried about any connection between that investigation and your wife’s death. He knew that if I continued to view it as a homicide I’d keep the pressure on April, since Lori was on her way to see her when she died. He knew they were friends and worried April would eventually crack and say something about his past. And then it would only be a matter of time before he was implicated. So he came up with a way to halt the speculation for good.” The note, Stephen thought. Under the mirror, inside our house.

  Caruso gave him a slight nod, looking as if he had read his mind.

  “We seized Niles’ home computer and combed through his hard drive and found a copy of that bogus suicide letter on it. Niles obviously hoped it would end our speculation that Lori had been murdered. He deleted it—or thought he had—but a digital imprint is impossible to eradicate. Nothing ever disappears from a computer completely.”

  Stephen felt dazed as he tried to understand the significance of what Caruso was telling him, his mind telling him he needed to hear it again.

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I was right. Your wife didn’t commit suicide. We can prove it now, so you don’t ever have to worry about it again.”

  He leaned forward, subconsciously reflecting Caruso’s posture, his forearms on his knees, hands clasped together, a lump at the back of his throat.

  “There’s more,” Caruso said.

  He sat back, still acutely conscious of being observed, as if more bad news was coming.

  “We confiscated April Devon’s computer. We know from the emails that Lori looked at April as someone who needed rescuing, for lack of a better word, because she had confided a lot of terrible things about her sister. And about things her sister did to her own son in the year before Niles killed her. Terrible things that April couldn’t get beyond. April told all of it to Lori, and made her promise to keep it between them.”

  “What do you mean—what kinds of things?”

  “Imagine the worst.”

  Caruso crossed his arms over his chest. In the silence that followed Stephen saw himself standing over Lori’s laptop, staring down at the history on her browser, struggling to comprehend the terrible things she had been reading about.

  Sadomasochism. Incest. Pedophilia.

  “I can’t give you any more details,” Caruso said. “But I know from the emails between them that Lori really wanted to help April deal with the shame and guilt she felt over what her sister had done. The ironic thing is…April sent her an email saying she felt like she was about to have a breakdown shortly before Lori went to see her.”

  Stephen looked at the smiling photos of Lori on his desk, thought once again of her demeanor the last night of her life.

  Rushing out into the rain.

  To help a friend.

  “That was Lori,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone who would do anything for the people she cared about.”

  Caruso nodded. “I think the relationship was important to both of them. April needed a friend who wouldn’t judge her. And Lori never did. She also confided a few of her own regrets.”

  Stephen anxiously met his eyes. “What kind of regrets?”

  “I…can’t say.”

  But you know, Stephen thought. About the affair. And the guilt she lived with. And how I couldn’t forgive her.

  He imagined Caruso reading through all of the emails between the two women, learning more about Lori’s mindset than he could ever understand.

  “She was lonely,” he said. “Out here in a new place, Away from the friends she used to have.”

  Caruso nodded, and looked toward the family photos on the desk.

  “I know all about loneliness. I lost my wife to it, too.”

  It was the first time Caruso had mentioned any family, or anything about his personal life.

  “What do you mean, John?”

  Caruso sighed. “Her name was Cassie. We married young—too young. A decision we made because she was pregnant. A good decision at the time because our whole life became about our son, Elliott. But then he…died.”

  Stephen waited for him to continue, thinking after a moment that he would say nothing more. But then Caruso reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out his wallet and showed him the photo of a little boy who looked to be about four years old. He was sitting in a hospital bed under a happy birthday elliott banner, surrounded by stuffed animals and nurses and smiling broadly and bravely despite his tiny, hairless head.

  Stephen’s throat swelled shut as Caruso ran his thumb gently across the photo.

  “Childhood leukemia,” Caruso said. “Diagnosed when he was four.”

  Caruso flipped to the next plastic-wrapped photo, a studio shot of himself at a much younger age, alongside a petite and very pretty, dark-haired woman and Elliott as a chubby, smiling toddler.

  “Nothing was the same after that. We didn’t know how to be together without him. We were living in my family’s cabin on the mountain. Cassie was there alone way too often while I threw myself into my job and just worked all the time. She left me about six months after Elliott died. Went to a new state. A new life. A place where she could have some real distance from the pain. Away from me and all of the memories of us together, as a family.”

  Caruso’s eyes were glazed, and his voice had gone hoarse with emotion. But then he cleared his throat and looked at Stephen again.

  “The point is, I know what you did, Stephen, and why you did it, because I would have done the same thing. But I can’t protect you from the consequences. You need to own up to it. Admit the truth.”

  “I can’t.”

  Stephen felt the rush of breath from his lungs as he spoke those words. Caruso stared back at him, clearly anticipating he’d say something more. Instead Stephen pressed his lips into a tight line, recognizing the near certainty of prison time and the final disintegration of the frail bonds that held his family together.

  The silence lengthened between them, until Stephen cleared his throat and said:

  “Thank you, John… for finding the letter. Proving what happened.”

  Caruso gave him a slight, sad smile. “You’re welcome Stephen.”

  He smiled back, feeling grateful for the momentary expression of kindness as he gazed around the room. The sparse furnishings. The paintings still stacked in corners, still waiting to be hung on the walls. The room, like his life, suspended by the sadness of Lori’s absence and the speculation of how she had died.

  Speculation that would now end.

  “Your mother didn’t leave us.”

  He heard himself telling Sara and Kenneth that their worst fears were unfounded. Their mother’s death was beyond her control.

  “She loved us. All of us.”

  “Stephen?”

  Caruso’s voice sounded as if it came from an echo chamber.

  “Are you all right?”

  Caruso was staring at him. Stephen saw him through a glaze of tears, felt his mouth working, struggling to speak.

  “I know what’s coming,” he said.

  Caruso sighed, looking weary and sad. “It’s going to be a tough fight for you.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t wish you luck,” Caruso said.

  “I know…” His
voice faltered.

  Caruso raised his arm, his hand hovering inches above Stephen’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” Stephen said, and walked him to the door.

  Sara drove as far as the gas station near the foot of the mountain before pulling off the road. The station was closed, the parking lot empty. She was worried that she was going to get a call from her father and didn’t want to be there for very long.

  The envelope was in the passenger seat. She picked it up and held it in her hands. She felt as if she was still awakening from a dream as Kieran’s words lingered in her mind. He had implied that the contents of the envelope were a reward for saving his life even though he made her feel as if there was something terrible yet to come.

  Acting like it wasn’t really over, she thought, as she slipped her index finger under the seal and tore it open and then switched on the overhead light to make it easier to read.

  The words swam in her vision, blurring and then coming into focus and then blurring again. The paragraphs were short and were written in Kieran’s tight script and in a strangely factual tone. The details were specific—Kieran describing how Aidan had slipped out the window of his house and the sound of a car skidding on the ice and the precise description of “a silver Ford Explorer driven by Stephen Porter.” The piece of ribbed glass had come from the taillight of her father’s car. “Physical evidence,” Kieran wrote. “If you need it.”

  “I had it in my coat pocket last Saturday. So it would be found…after.”

  Kieran’s voice came back to her, telling her what she had suspected, that he had planned to kill himself, because the grief from Aidan’s death was too much for him to bear. She knew that it still was—knew it from the memory of him standing alone in the dim and disheveled room at the back of his house, looking completely lost as he watched her go.

  A wave of shame swept through her as she recounted what she had done to prepare for this night: the mascara she had stroked onto her lashes, the careful selection of clothes, her carefully thought-out description of her father’s fragile state of mind; all driven by willingness to do anything to keep Kieran from telling the police what he knew.

  She knew that she had succeeded. The envelope was resting in her lap, the piece of hard red plastic in the palm of her hand. It would be easy to get rid of it now, to toss it and the note into a random trash can.

  Just forget you ever saw it.

  But she knew that she never would; and knew the crime her father had committed would stay with her, for the rest of her life.

  Just as Kieran wanted.

  She gazed at her reflection in the window. A mind’s eye image of Kieran gazed back. She flinched and looked straight ahead, toward the dark and empty road that would take her home.

  Here it is, Stephen thought. The last normal night of your life.

  The kitchen island had three place settings, with sisal mats that Lori had bought specifically for the room and blue and white plaid napkins threaded through red ceramic rings that had been a wedding present twenty years before. In the middle was a tray of snacks Stephen had laid out for Sara and Kenneth to nibble on before a dinner of lasagna and crescent rolls; the best kind of comfort food for a winter night.

  He looked at the clock. He was still worried that Sara might call and ask to spend the evening with friends—and felt a sense of relief when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs and saw Kenneth, in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower. Kenneth had spent most of the afternoon utilizing the World Gym membership that Lori had bought for the family the previous fall. It was his fourth workout in one week. The first one had occurred two days after the nightmare on the mountain. Kenneth had come home straight from school, biked there in thirty-degree temperatures, and worked out for over two hours.

  Stephen had asked him about the sudden interest in physical activity.

  Kenneth had answered him with a shrug and turned toward the stairs, making it clear he didn’t want to discuss it. Each workout that followed had been longer than the last. Stephen noticed a subtle but definite change in the way his son carried himself now. His shoulders seemed higher, his gait more assured. And when Stephen had broached the subject of returning to school Kenneth had answered, “Sure, why not?”

  Conquering his fear, Stephen thought now. So far his discussions with Sara and Kenneth about what had happened had been brief—sparked by his invitations “to talk about it whenever you’re ready.” But Stephen knew that his son’s heroism would take center stage when the conversations finally did happen because Kenneth had fought back against Joseph Niles. He had shown astounding bravery. He had saved his sister’s life.

  He thought about the other conversation that he would have with both of his kids at some point during the night, when he would be able to tell them with certainty that Lori had not taken her own life. The knowledge felt promising, a first step toward rebuilding the sense of family stability that he had once taken for granted.

  He tried to ignore the feeling that it wouldn’t be enough; tried to believe that the hours that Kenneth and Sara spent behind the closed doors of their bedrooms and the long periods of heavy silence that descended whenever the three of them were together were transitory, a mere symptom of a phase of grief and uncertainty that would fade away.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  Kenneth’s concerned expression only made him feel worse.

  “Yeah.” He turned toward the refrigerator and took out two red peppers and set them on the wooden chopping block. “We’ll eat as soon as your sister gets home.”

  “What did Mr. Caruso want?”

  He froze, conscious of Kenneth behind him, staring at his back. The music had continued to drift down from his son’s room throughout the short meeting with Caruso and he had hoped that Kenneth had somehow not noticed the sight of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Car in the driveway.

  “He was just checking in, making sure we’re okay.”

  Kenneth frowned, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard him right.

  “He’s a good man,” Stephen said, for lack of anything better. “A friend.”

  “Did he tell you what he’s going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kenneth stared down at the counter. His lips were pressed tightly together, as if he was determined to hold his tongue. Stephen remembered him sitting at the same place the morning after the accident, asking him about the police car in the driveway. Remembered the first wave of lies he had told, preparing his family even then for the alternate version of the night’s events, the fictional scenario that he hoped would protect him.

  The sound of footsteps on the front porch saved him from answering. He looked toward the foyer and saw Sara in the narrow window alongside the door and started to call out to her as she entered.

  A glance at her face as she headed toward the stairs stopped him.

  “Hey, Daddy.” Her voice was strained. She went upstairs without taking off her coat, moving quickly as if to ensure she wouldn’t be stopped.

  He looked at Kenneth, and knew that he had likewise gotten a glimpse of her teary eyes and the narrow streaks of ruined makeup on her cheeks.

  A crying jag, he thought.

  It was a reasonable assumption. His own nightmares had jolted him awake at several points in the nights after the shooting. An Ambien prescription now enabled him to sleep for several hours at a time but hadn’t succeeded in shutting down the mental snapshots of the violence that came back to him without warning during the day.

  Give her some time alone, he thought, and turned back to the chopping block.

  Kenneth was still looking toward the foyer, his expression still troubled.

  “You think she’s all right?” Stephen asked.

  Kenneth let several seconds slip by before he answered. “I don’t know.”

  He glanced at the cloc
k above the stove; realized Sara had been gone for over two hours, and remembered that she had been noticeably jittery when she left.

  “Maybe I should check on her,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  Stephen looked at him, surprised that he was so quick to agree, then went to the stairs, stepping lightly, worried about intruding even before he saw that her bedroom door was shut. The floors were solid and his feet were bare. He doubted she heard him as he approached and stood a few inches away.

  He heard sobbing—with short, gasping breaths. He started to knock but stayed still, vacillating between his desire to comfort her and his certainty that she wanted to be left alone. He knew how the evening would go—in half an hour she would come downstairs, quiet and composed. She and Kenneth would spend the evening quietly with him, without fighting.

  Acting brave for you.

  Knowing what’s coming.

  Sara’s crying had stopped. He wasn’t sure when—his mind had wandered as he stood outside her doorway and he felt lightheaded and conscious of the need to retreat as the door suddenly opened.

  She stepped back in surprise, as if she had caught him, spying.

  He pressed his palm against the wall. His mind blanked as he tried to think of what to say to her.

  “You okay honey?”

  She nodded. She had dabbed a bit of color on her cheeks and pulled her hair back from her face. She looked as he had expected, as if she had worked through what was troubling her, gotten herself together.

  Or at least tried. She met his eyes for an instant and then looked down at the floor. Her posture was unnaturally erect, her hand still grasping the doorknob, making him wonder if she was going to retreat back into her room.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and tried to meet his eyes again, determined this time, struggling, Stephen thought.

  He wanted to pull her into a hug, but knew that she would be stiff in his arms.

  “I’ll go downstairs now.” She angled her body to slip past him, her smile self-consciously brightening. “Almost movie time right?”

  “Yeah,” Stephen said, and let her pass.