At eleven she called her father and invited him to lunch. “And Mom, too,” she added.
“She’d like that. You two don’t spend enough time together.”
They met at the foot of Stearns Wharf and walked out the pier to The Harbor Restaurant.
“They should post warning signs,” Marjorie Hightower said. “The boards are uneven. Someone is going to sprain an ankle.”
“It’s nothing a two-year-old can’t handle,” Evelyn said.
“You laugh, but just think of the liability.”
They ate at a table by the window. Evelyn indulged in a cup of clam chowder, swordfish, and a glass of Chardonnay. Her mother had shrimp salad, and her father a Caesar salad.
“You seem anxious,” he said.
“Do I? I guess I am.” If her emotions were so apparent, how was she supposed to feign innocence?
“You want to tell us about it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She couldn’t very well say, My husband is having an affair; I slept with the pool boy, who’s blackmailing me with a pornographic film of my daughter; and I’m planning on murdering him. Other than that, everything’s fine, Dad. “It’s just this business thing.”
“Is Howard giving you a hard time about it?” her father asked.
“Maybe he just doesn’t want you to be disappointed,” her mother said.
“It’s complicated,” Evelyn said. “There’s a lot to consider.”
“Do you want me to talk with him again?” her father asked.
“No, he’s not happy you called him the first time.”
“You shouldn’t interfere, dear,” Marjorie told her husband. “It’s between the kids. They have to work things out themselves.”
Evelyn took a healthy swig of wine and watched a large, male sea lion come up for air.
“I finished a new painting. It’s a watercolor and pastel.”
“I like your oils best,” her mother said.
Their plates came and they ate, making small talk about the food, and Evelyn drank her wine and watched the sea lion as it dove and came up for air and dove again. The wine eased the tension. By the bottom of the first glass, she was feeling content, and savoring each sip. There would be no wine in prison.
“I went by the gallery the other day,” Bill Hightower said. “Your work holds up well next to the others on the wall. A bit pricey, but...it looks good.”
“I’m glad we’re digitizing everything. It’ll be good to give the kids the scans. I’m sure they never saw some of those pieces, or don’t remember.”
Then she took out her phone and showed her mother where Sam was in Paris (her apartment on Quai Malaquais). She tapped the message button and dictated a message: “Out to lunch with Mom and Dad. Send us a photo.”
A minute later, a message came back with a photo of Samantha standing by a tall window overlooking the Seine. She wondered if they allowed cell phones in prison and guessed not.
Afterwards they strolled back down the pier, smelling the brine and cooked fish smells. “It’s good to be alive,” she said.
“It’s better than the alternative,” her father said.
“Not necessarily,” her mother said.
That evening she opened Friend Finder, and found Howard at Connie’s as expected. She clicked “Notify Me When Howard Leaves Current Location.” When he came through the door, she had a roast chicken and martini waiting at the dining room table. Later, she sat with him in the living room as he drank his second martini in front of the evening news. They talked companionably, reminding her of earlier times, and she thought she could almost forgive him his infidelities. Almost, but not quite.
The next morning she once again awoke with the intention of living one last normal day, but it was impossible. She soon regretted putting off the inevitable, because thoughts of what she was planning kept looping through her mind, along with all the ways it could go wrong. It was one thing to plan it. It was another to see it through. She wasn’t at all sure she could see it through. How could it be otherwise? After all, she wasn’t a sociopath.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After Howard had left for work Thursday morning, Evelyn took the small pistol out to the backyard. She’d never fired it and wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, but she didn’t think it could be too difficult. It looked like a toy. The day was calm and clear with hardly a cloud in the sky. The grass was still wet with dew and the air still cool, but she could tell from the stillness of the day that it would be a warm afternoon. She walked to the far end of the pool and turned around, surveying the property. To the south and west, she looked into the tops of native scrub oak and madrone, above which rose the occasional imported blue spruce, pine, eucalyptus and royal palm. Through the trees she could see the roof of the house directly across from the bottom of her driveway. Sharing the knoll on the north, her nearest neighbor was hidden behind a dense privet hedge.
She examined the little Ruger. She pushed the button on the bottom of the handle and the magazine popped out. It held six bullets. She pushed it back in. Then she turned to the nearest palm, its grey trunk like the leg of an elephant, pointed the gun, and gently pulled the trigger. She pulled harder. It wouldn’t budge. She let out a deep sigh of relief, glad that she’d thought to test it first. What might have happened if she’d pointed it at Ramon and been unable to fire it? She saw a safety lever by the trigger guard and pushed it up. Then she raised the barrel and pulled the trigger again. This time a loud crack reverberated in her ears, splinters flew and a small hole appeared in the smooth grey trunk of the palm. She was shocked at how loud the gun was. Not that it mattered. If anyone had heard, no one was interested enough to investigate.
Midafternoon she sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea and went over her list. The first thing on the list was “test gun.” She crossed that off. One part of her knew that she was only going through the motions, that she would never actually do what she planned to do. It was too far beyond the pale. It wasn’t who she was. Then she thought of her daughter, and a future where the threat of exposure was always there in the background, like a hammer raised overhead, to threaten and coerce. She got up to address the items on her list.
She placed an easel in the living room in front of the French doors, and set her finished painting of the herb garden on it. She propped the French doors open. She looked out past the fountain and across the lawn to the pool. From this angle, she couldn’t see the bottom of the pool. She crossed those items off the list.
Next, she texted Howard to ask if she should make dinner for him, knowing full well that this was Thursday and he would likely pay a visit to Connie before coming home.
Upstairs, she pulled on cutoff jeans over a bikini bottom, and a linen halter top over a bikini top. From the bottom of her closet, she brought out a woven grass beach basket with a cloth interior and rope handles. She made sure the safety was off before placing the Ruger in the bottom of the basket and covering it with a folded beach towel. She added a pair of latex gloves (to keep gunshot residue from her hands), flip-flops, a plastic bottle of sunscreen, and a pair of sunglasses.
Her phone pinged with a predictable text message from Howard: “Going to the gym after work. I’ll grab a sandwich. Don’t worry about me for dinner.”
She crossed those items off the list.
She texted Brooke: “Are we still on for this evening? Six thirtyish?”
A return message arrived a few seconds later: “Looking forward to it.” She crossed that off the list.
On the bed she laid a towel; panties; bra; short-sleeved T-style dress, and sandals. She transferred her essential items from a large purse to a small purse.
In the study, she took a blank sheet of paper and printed with a permanent marker: “COME ON IN. (The painting is in the living room. I’m out back).” Then she affixed clear tape along the upper edge of the paper and left
it on the edge of the desk.
All of the items in the “before” list had been checked off. She was left with the “after” list. The thought of what came between made her heart thud in her chest. She felt nauseous. This is ridiculous. You’ll look as guilty as you feel. Calm down. She tried lying down, but she was too nervous to nap. She poured herself a Riesling and went over the lists again. She could still take him to bed before killing him and claim rape, but that would probably result in a trial, and there would always be questions hanging over her. Was she the instigator? Howard would wonder what she was doing with the gun in the bedroom, when it should have been locked safely in his desk drawer. No, her plan was simple and only required proper timing. By the time she was through her second glass of wine, she felt a sense of calm inevitability. Either she would, or she wouldn’t. She would just have to see how it played out, how all those intangibles would fall into place (or not). She couldn’t anticipate all eventualities. She had done her very best. She had written her part. Now she would just have to play it.
She took the beach basket out to the far end of the pool and set it by the chaise lounge. Since Ramon had skipped his usual Tuesday visit to clean the pool, a profusion of purple jacaranda blossoms floated on the surface. She saw three dead bees, and another still struggling. It was close to the edge. She dipped her hand in the water and came up beneath it. It clung to her finger and she placed it on a basil leaf. It looked saturated. Evelyn had little hope it would recover.
Her garden tableau was still there — the hose, the shovel, the sun hat, the trowel, the gloves. She put on the hat and the gloves and picked up the trowel, wishing her life could be as simple and carefree as it was before Samantha had gone off to UCLA. She’d been living in ignorance, but she’d been happy. She began loosening the soil around the plants, pulling the weeds up with their roots, and deepening the furrows that would take the water. It didn’t take her long to lose herself in the work, so it came as a surprise when she heard Ramon set down his case.
Evelyn turned and saw him. He was dressed uncharacteristically in khaki pants, a white, short-sleeved dress shirt, a narrow tie, and Florsheim loafers. He wore no hat or sunglasses. His hair had been oiled and neatly combed, and he held a laptop. It was as though he were going to a job interview. He wouldn’t have dressed like this for her. He’d obviously preened and dressed to meet Howard, like one male bird posturing before another, jockeying for a position of power. Too bad Howard would never be here to see it. She smiled at him, serene in her role, not really believing she would go through with it.
She checked her watch. “You’re early by three minutes.”
“I want you and your husband to know you can count on me. I keep my appointments.”
So far everything was going to plan. She felt as though she were playacting, watching her plans unfold as she had envisioned them, one step at a time. She could continue, or just let the time pass and not act.
“I see you brought your computer. Is the video on it?”
He handed her the laptop. “It’s under photos.”
She took off her right hand gardening glove so she could use the trackpad. It wasn’t easy to see in the light of the afternoon sun, but she navigated the screen, found the video in question, and deleted it. “Is that it? Are there any more?”
“That’s it; I swear.”
She remembered the video of him massaging her back. Innocent enough, but it could be damning evidence in the right context. She found it and deleted it. She could still call it off now, if that were really all of the copies. Had she scrolled further back, she would have found videos of other women, but as it turned out, it was just as well she didn’t.
“I have some spreadsheets on our investment, if you’d like to look.”
“Not now,” she said, placing the laptop on the chaise lounge. “Let me have your phone.”
“You already deleted it from my phone.”
“Let me have it anyway.”
He handed it over. She opened the photo app and scrolled through the photos until she found the video of herself. She deleted it. That was the problem — the sad fact was that in a digital world, where copies could be made over and over again, there were never any guarantees.
“Okay, there, that’s done,” she said, and tossed the phone onto the chaise lounge, beside the laptop. “Howard won’t be home for half an hour. You might as well clean the pool.”
“Right.”
She bent to retrieve her gardening glove and pulled it on. She still had time. She could wait. She could let the time pass and make excuses for Howard. She didn’t have to rush into anything. Ramon went to his blue case and extracted the chemical analyzer. Seeing him standing there next to the pool brought to mind the last time they’d been here, how he’d held his phone above his head laughing at her. She remembered later fantasizing a different ending, rushing at him, shoulder down like a football linebacker. He would fall back and strike his head on the coping, and while he was unconscious she would roll his body into the water. Fantasies, of course, required too much luck. He knelt at the deep end and dipped a plastic beaker into the water to sample the chlorine and PH level. With his back turned, she realized this was the perfect moment. All she had to do was take off her gardening gloves, put on the latex gloves, retrieve the gun from the bottom of the bag, and shoot him. He took a dropper, withdrew a chemical from a small bottle, dripped one drop into the beaker, and shook it vigorously. She glanced at the beach basket, knowing that she was running out of time. Then, at the corner of her vision she saw the shovel. In two steps she had it in her hands. He slid a graduated color sample into a slot on the side of the beaker. She raised the shovel over her head like an axe. The shovel blade knocked some jacaranda blossoms loose. Ramon held the beaker up and tilted his head back to view the water’s color against the sky, just as Evelyn brought the shovel down with all the force she could bring to bear. She knew that if she missed, he would retaliate. He would beat her and release the video online. She put her arms and her legs into it. With his chin tilted up, the curved backside of the blade came down squarely on top of his head. He pitched into the water like a sack of potatoes. Floating blossoms closed over the spot where he’d fallen in. The shaft vibrated in her hands.
Horrified at what she’d done, she was torn between jumping in after him or letting him drown. Her heart began to pound so hard she had to lean on the shovel just to keep from collapsing. She took several deep breaths until her heart slowed and her head cleared. Through the skein of blossoms she saw him touch the bottom on his back and bounce once, as if in slow motion. She thought she still had time to dive in and pull him to safety.
After almost a minute, a gush of bubbles boiled to the surface. His eyes jerked open in a panic, and she watched in terror as he gathered his legs beneath him and sprang off the bottom toward the air and oxygen. The crown of his head broke the surface just as the shovel came down upon it. He never got the chance to take another breath, but settled comatose toward the bottom. She watched, terrified, as though she’d had nothing to do with the matter. She watched him for a long time. When he aspirated water, his whole body spasmed, then suddenly relaxed, his mouth and eyes open as if in surprise. She dropped to her knees and shook. Nausea gripped her throat. She fought down the urge to vomit. She felt light-headed and faint, and knelt on the grass for what felt like five minutes. Then she replanted the shovel in the herb garden and hung her hat on it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She took off the gardening gloves and dropped them into the beach basket, thinking, The gloves will fit; they won’t acquit. She put on latex gloves and used the beach towel to wipe fingerprints from the laptop and phone. She checked her phone for the time, 6:03 p.m., and for Brooke (just leaving the gallery). She walked around the short hedge that hid the pool pump and heater and, after a moment’s hesitation, changed the heater’s target temperature from seventy-four to eighty-four degrees.
In the warming water, the body would lose heat less quickly and push the estimated time of death later.
Studiously avoiding looking into the water, she set Ramon’s phone conspicuously on the chaise lounge. Don’t think about it. If you don’t think about it, it didn’t really happen. Next, she called Ramon’s phone. It began playing Mozart’s French horn rondo. When it went to voicemail she said, “Ramon, this is Evelyn Marsh — on Via Sueños Perdidos? I expected you Tuesday. The pool filter is full of jacaranda blossoms. Call me and let me know what’s happening.”
She put her phone in her pocket and slid the laptop into the beach bag and carried it around to the shallow end. There she left the beach towel and flip-flops. She carried the beach bag to the study, wiped off the Ruger and replaced it in the drawer. She checked Friend Finder. Brooke was already halfway there, perhaps twelve minutes away. She picked up the paper instructing Brooke to let herself in, and took it to the front door. She swung the door inward and taped the paper to the middle of the door, running her thumb over the tape to make it secure. As she began to close the door she glanced toward the driveway and froze. Ramon’s truck stood parked in the driveway at the end of the front walk.
Her heart leaped into her throat. She’d completely forgotten about the truck. It was to avoid just this sort of contingency that she had planned and planned and gone over everything in her mind dozens of times. Now, when push came to shove, she’d come up short. She would have to move the truck, and she realized with horror that if the keys were in Ramon’s pocket, she would have to dive for them, and she was running out of time. She sprinted to the truck in a panic, hoping against hope, jerked open the door and peered anxiously into the cab. With an enormous sense of relief, she saw the keys dangling from the ignition. There was no time to lose. She ran for the garage, opened the side door, hit the button to open the empty left bay where Howard parked his car, and ran back to the truck. The door had barely rotated up before she pulled into Howard’s spot. She hit the button to close the door and sprinted for the house.
Evelyn Marsh Page 13